An Ideal Craftsman, by Walter de la Mare

Walter de la Mare at the Wikipedia

The Listeners (poem)

Peacock Pie (collection of poems)

BIOGRAPHY

He was born in 1873 in Kent (now, a quarter of London). He died at 83 years old. One of his ancestors was French, hence his surname, "De la Mare". Somebody said also that he was a relative of Robert Browning, the famous poet, but it wasn’t true. When he was 23, he started working for the Standard Oil Company to provide for his family; but he also found time to write. At 26, he married the actress Elfrida Ingpen, then years older than him, and they had four children.

When he was 35, thanks to Sir Henry Newbolt (a poet, historian and a government adviser), he got a pension from the government that allowed him to write full time.

He wrote mainly poems for children, e.g. Peacock Pie, tales as Collected Stories for Children, and also horror stories, e.g. Eight Tales. He wrote a surrealistic novel too, Memoirs of a Midget, awarded by the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

About literature, he devised two kinds of imagination: childlike imagination (visionary) and boylike imagination (intellectual and analytical). According to him, the best poets are in the border between both imaginations.

SUMMARY

“An Ideal Craftsman” tells us the way to fake a suicide of somebody murdered. A young boy is awakened in the middle of the night by a noise and sets off for a raid on the kitchen, but he is afraid of the servant Jacobs. We don’t know exactly what is Jacobs like, but we do know that, according to the boy, he is a villain. After going through several corridors, halls and stairs (because it is a big house), the boy reaches the kitchen, where he finds a woman (the cook or another servant) that behaves in a very strange fashion, but she is friendly with the boy. The boy asks her where is Jacobs, and she says he’s gone. But when he leaves to go back to his room, he discovers Jacobs’s body, and the woman confesses her murder. The boy seems to understand why she has killed him. However, she doesn’t want to run away because she knows the murder and the culprit are going to be discovered easily.  Still, the boy feels some affection for the woman and has the idea of counterfeiting a suicide in order to dodge all suspicions against her. But there is a small detail missing. Will they become aware of it and arrange the scene?

QUESTIONS

According to Roald Dahl (Book of Ghost Stories), “it is the women who have written some of the very best ones” (meaning ghost stories or horror stories). And some other critics say that women are very good at children and ghost books. What do you think about this? Do women and men have different abilities when they are writing?

About the story:

Talk about the characters:

The boy (age, interests, family, personality…)

The woman (appearance, temperament, age, job…)

Jacobs: what do you know about him?

When do you use the question Qui vive? (202, 6)

What is the Newgate Calendar? (202, 19)

What do they mean by the “silver night”? (203, 29)

Why do you think the woman talks to the boy in the third person? (206, 26-29, et al.)

The boy finds incredible that so stout a woman had so small a voice. Do you think that voices can be beautiful or ugly, as faces we think are?

For the boy, “one pretty keepsake had been degraded forever” (207, 20). What does it mean?

Why did some “old man’s bones had lain beneath the tramplings of the crossroads”? (213, 4)

Why did the woman kill Jacobs?

How did she kill him? How do you know?

What was the boy’s reaction when he knew of the murder? Why do you think he has this reaction?

The boy and the woman arrange things to pretend it was a suicide. But there was a missing detail: what was this detail?

VOCABULARY

frisked, pampered, scuffling, piecing together, summoned, wound up, raiding, ferret, sheathed, poignard, wraith, qualm, eavesdropper, bent, ladle, bedaubed, locket, gallivanting, shammy, shunning, minified, cock-crow, fusty, larder, draughts, blancmange, sly, baize, wreathing, gaunt, squawk, blandishment, mottled, callousness, apiary, keepsake, mawkishly, look out, thrush, wheedlingly, waddling, stark, wisp, chicken skin, holly, kitchen range, gallipot, small hours, trampling, stoutly, linnet, throttled, stage villain, arena, maundering, cut, gritty, pell-mell, ditch, crockery, wilted, bawled

The Monkey's Paw, by W. W. Jacobs

W.W. Jacobs at the Wikipedia

The Monkey's Paw at the Wikipedia

Audiobook

Movie

Study guide

W.W. JACOBS
By Aurora Ledesma

BIOGRAPHY
 
William Wymark Jacobs was born on September 8^th, 1863 in Wapping (London). The eldest son of William Gage Jacobs, and his first wife, Sophia Wymark, who died when Jacob was very young. Jacob’s father was the manager of a South Devon wharf, and young Jacobs spent much time with his brothers and sisters among the wharves, observing the comings and goings of the ships and their crews.
The Jacobs were a large poor family and; young W.W. as he was called by his friends, was shy and had a fair complexion. Jacobs attended a private school in London and later went to Birkbeck College (now part of the University of London). In 1879, Jacobs began work as a clerk in the civil service, in the Post Office Savings Bank, and by 1885 he had his first short story published, but success come slowly. Most of his work was humorous, and his favourite subject was marine life. His first collection of stories “Many Cargoes” shows the lives of men who go down to the sea in ships.
Jacobs is remembered for a macabre tale, “The Monkey’s Paw”, which was published in 1902 in a short-story collection, The Lady of the Barge, with several other ghost stories.
Another collection of short stories, Sea Urchins, made him very popular. From October 1898, Jacob’s stories appeared in the Strand Magazine, which provided him with financial security almost up to his death.
By 1899, Jacobs was able to quit his job at the post office and finally begin making a living as a full-time writer. He married Agnes Eleanor Williams. The couple had five children, though their marriage was considered an unhappy one.
In his late years, Jacobs wrote dramatizations and adaptations of his existing stories. Jacobs’s legacy remains solid: he continued Dickens’s tradition for sharing working class stories in authentic vernacular.
Jacobs died in a North London nursing home on September 1st, 1943 a week prior to his 80^th birthday.

SUMMARY

On a dark and stormy night, the family Mr. & Mrs. White and their son Herbert, are enjoying a cosy evening around the fire. A family friend, Sergeant - Major Morris arrives for a visit and tells them stories about his adventures during his military service in India. He shows them a monkey’s paw and tells them that it has the power to grant anyone three wishes. Mr. White is interested in buying it; however, Morris says that people have bad luck after their wishes are granted. When he was about to throw the paw in the fire, Mr. White grabs it from him.

After Morris left, the family discusses the wishes. Mr. White, following Herbert’s suggestion, asks for 200 pounds which he can use to pay off his mortgage.  The family waits, but nothing happens. Next day, Herbert goes to work and does not return. In the evening, a person from his company comes to their house and tells them that their son has had an accident with the machinery and died. He says that the company is not responsible for the accident. However, as compensation the company gives the family a check of 200 Pounds.

Mr. White goes to identify his son’s body and bury it. After a short discussion, Mrs. White orders his husband to make a wish to see her son alive. After a while, somebody knocks at the door, and she goes to open it. Mr. White remembers his son’s mutilated body during the burial and makes the third wish. The knocking at the door suddenly stops, they open the door and find no one there.

The Monkey’s Paw is a very popular story. A lot of films, T.V. series and plays have been made about it. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador made a chapter for the TVE series “Historias para no dormir”.

QUESTIONS

Talk about the characters
>Mr White

>Mrs White

>Herbert White

>Sergeant Morris

>The man from Maw & Meggins

Mrs White tries to calm down her husband when he's lost the game. What do you usually do to calm down another person?

Let's talk about superstitions, magic, talismans... Do you have any anecdote about the topic?

What do you think about fate? Do you believe in fate? Do you think there is a relation between cosmos and people?

Can you imagine which were the sergeant wishes?

And the first man's wishes?

What did Mrs White wish for the house?

If you had three wishes, what would you wish and why?

Do you remember other ways of saying wishes? Can you explain them?

Do you think Mrs White would accept her son as he was after the accident?

Would you do the same as the father with the third wish? Why?

Can you imagine another ending for the story?

VOCABULARY
knitting, grimly, mate, slushy, condoling, beady of eye, doughy, offhandedly, spell, jarred, sensible, henpecked, marred, squatting, wholesomeness, disown, bibulous, silk hat, dozed, fitfully, bracket, mantelpiece, china, screwing up

The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe

Illustration by Harry Clarke, 1919

Edgar Allan Poe at he the Wikipedia: click here

The Tell-Tale Heart at the Wikipedia: click here

The Tell-Tale Heart: video materials on Youtube: click here

Movie based freely on the story: Tell-Tale

Movie based on the story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether: Stonehearst Asylum

Deathwatch beetle

Deathwatch beetle sound

Presentation, by Àngels Gallardo

Edgar Allan Poe

He was born in 1809 in Boston (USA) and he died when he was 40 years old in 1849.
He was a writer, poet, crític reviewer and journalist, and he has been recognized as one of the best authors of short horror stories. 

The Tell-Tale Heart:

This is a horror story that has been written by Edgar Allan Poe and published in 1843.
The history relates the obsession of a man for an old man who has a pale blue eye.
We don't know the man who explains what happened, which was the relation between two men and what their names were, but we know that they were living together in an old house.
He was so obsessed with the pale blue eye of the old man that he thought he would kill him.
Every night at twelve o'clock, he went to the bedroom of the old man to watch him sleeping to see if he had his pale blue eye open.
After eight nights, he saw that his eye was open and decided to kill him.
The old man shrieked when the man wanted to kill him, and a neighbour who heard it called the police.
The man had a guilty conscience, and, at the end, he confessed the crime to the police officers.

QUESTIONS

“The disease had sharpened my senses”. Do you know a case where an illness can sharpen the senses? They used to say that tuberculosis sharpened the sexual appetite.

Say something about the narrator. Could the narrator be a woman? Why?

Who was the old man?

What was the relationship between the narrator and the victim?

What is the “evil eye”? What are your superstitions?

There is a saying “Better the devil you know (than the devil you don't).” What do you prefer: something /somebody new (unknown) or something /somebody old (known)? Why?

“The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage”. Do you think this is true? What stimulates you into courage?

Who were the three men, and why did they come to the house?

How long did the murder and the hiding of the body last?

Why didn’t the murderer kill the man one of the seven first nights?

What do you think is the noise of “a watch when enveloped in cotton”?

VOCABULARY

dark lantern, chuckle, awe, well up, marrow, tattoo, yell, stone dead, wan, tub, foam, dissemble

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (fragment):

A scene of the most horrible butchery ensued. The bound seamen were dragged to the gangway. Here the cook stood with an axe, striking each victim on the head as he was forced over the side of the vessel by the other mutineers. In this manner twenty-two perished, and Augustus had given himself up for lost, expecting every moment his own turn to come next. But it seemed that the villains were now either weary, or in some measure disgusted with their bloody labour; for the four remaining prisoners, together with my friend, who had been thrown on the deck with the rest, were respited while the mate sent below for rum, and the whole murderous party held a drunken carouse, which lasted until sunset. They now fell to disputing in regard to the fate of the survivers, who lay not more than four paces off, and could distinguish every word said. Upon some of the mutineers the liquor appeared to have a softening effect, for several voices were heard in favour of releasing the captives altogether, on condition of joining the mutiny and sharing the profits. The black cook, however (who in all respects was a perfect demon, and who seemed to exert as much influence, if not more, than the mate himself), would listen to no proposition of the kind, and rose repeatedly for the purpose of resuming his work at the gangway. Fortunately, he was so far overcome by intoxication as to be easily restrained by the less bloodthirsty of the party, among whom was a line-manager, who went by the name of Dirk Peters. This man was the son of an Indian squaw of the tribe of Upsarokas, who live among the fastnesses of the Black Hills near the source of the Missouri. His father was a fur-trader, I believe, or at least connected in some manner with the Indian trading-posts on Lewis river. Peters himself was one of the most purely ferocious-looking men I ever beheld. He was short in stature—not more than four feet eight inches high—but his limbs were of the most Herculean mould. His hands, especially, were so enormously thick and broad as hardly to retain a human shape. His arms, as well as legs, were bowed in the most singular manner, and appeared to possess no flexibility whatever. His head was equally deformed, being of immense size, with an indentation on the crown (like that on the head of most negroes), and entirely bald. To conceal this latter deficiency, which did not proceed from old age, he usually wore a wig formed of any hair-like material which presented itself—occasionally the skin of a Spanish dog or American grizzly bear. At the time spoken of he had on a portion of one of these bearskins; and it added no little to the natural ferocity of his countenance, which betook of the Upsaroka character. The mouth extended nearly from ear to ear; the lips were thin, and seemed, like some other portions of his frame, to be devoid of natural pliancy, so that the ruling expression never varied under the influence of any emotion whatever. This ruling expression may be conceived when it is considered that the teeth were exceedingly long and protruding, and never even partially covered, in any instance, by the lips. To pass this man with a casual glance, one might imagine him to be convulsed with laughter—but a second look would induce a shuddering acknowledgment, that if such an expression were indicative of merriment, the merriment must be that of a demon. Of this singular being many anecdotes were prevalent among the seafaring men of Nantucket. These anecdotes went to prove his prodigious strength when under excitement, and some of them had given rise to a doubt of his sanity. But on board the Grampus, it seems, he was regarded at the time of the mutiny with feelings more of derision than of anything else. I have been thus particular in speaking of Dirk Peters, because, ferocious as he appeared, he proved the main instrument in preserving the life of Augustus, and because I shall have frequent occasion to mention him hereafter in the course of my narrative—a narrative, let me here say, which, in its latter portions, will be found to include incidents of a nature so entirely out of the range of human experience, and for this reason so far beyond the limits of human credulity, that I proceed in utter hopelessness of obtaining credence for all that I shall tell, yet confidently trusting in time and progressing science to verify some of the most important and most improbable of my statements.

The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson at the Wikipedia: click here

The Lottery at the Wikipedia: click here

The Lottery: study guide

The Lottery: audiobook

The Lottery: review

The Lottery, short movie:

Presentation, by Remedios Benéitez

Biography

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco, California, in 1916, and spent her childhood in Burlingame, California, when she began writing poetry and short stories as a young teenager. Her family moved east when she was seventeen, and she attended the University of Rochester, New York.

She entered Syracuse University, N.Y., in 1937, where she met her future husband, the young aspiring literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Both graduated in 1940 and moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, where Shirley wrote without fail every day. She began having her stories published in The New Republic and The New Yorker.

In 1945 her husband was offered a teaching position at Bennington College, and they moved into an old house in North Bennington, Vermont, where Shirley continued her daily writing while raising children and running the house.

Her first novel The Road Through the Wall was published in1948, the same year that The New Yorker published her iconic story The Lottery.

She composed six novels, including The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, two memoirs and more than 200 short stories.

She was a heavy smoker and suffered numerous health problems. In 1965, Shirley died in her sleep at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48.

THE LOTTERY

It is a short story by Shirley Jackson published in the magazine The New Yorker on June 26, 1948. Reaction to the post from readers was negative, who sent protest messages to the magazine, but later it was accepted as a classic short story subject to interpretations. Now it’s considered as “one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature”. It has been adapted for radio, theatre and television.

 Argument:

The lottery takes place on a beautiful summer day, June 27, in a small town of 300 inhabitants, where all residents gather for a traditional annual lottery.

Although the event seems festive at first, people show a strange and gloomy mood, and it soon becomes clear that no one wants to win the lottery.

The draw is carried out between the heads of the family. The Hutchinsons are chosen and then the draw is made within the chosen family, getting chosen Tessie (the mother), so she is stoned to death by all the neighbours of the town, including his own family. This is a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest, according to the beliefs of the community.

I think that this is a story about the human capacity for violence. It explores ideas such as communal violence, individual vulnerability and the dangers of blindly following traditions.

We rely on collective violence in those circumstances that we would not be able to consider individually.

ISSUES

The quid of the story is that the people seem normal, nice and even happy, and they go to the square as they would go to the market, with an informal attitude, they chatter and gossip; even the day is sunny, the children don’t have school because they start the summer holidays and the procedures of the lottery are simple and common. So the jewel of the story is the ending; we don’t imagine that something horrifying is going to happen. The villagers aren’t afraid, although we suspect that something surprising can happen, because there’s too much happiness, and we have had some hints, e.g., they collect stones, there is somebody missing, Mrs Hutchington says “it isn’t fair”, etc. So in this case we have a story that loses all its effect when we know the end; the story has a punch, but as soon as we know that it’s going to hit us at the end, we are alert and don’t get hurt (symbolically) any more. A similar classical and very famous story of this kind is Monkey’s Paw, by W.W. Jacobs. I strongly recommend its reading if you like these kind of stories: it’s short and easy to read with a lot of dialogue.
👉So, what kind of stories do you prefer: the ones with a clear ending or the ones without?

I think the main topic of the story is tradition, what we do with tradition. According to the dictionary “tradition is a custom or way of behaving that has continued for a long time in a group of people”, but, for me, another definition is also possible: tradition is what you do because someone before you did, not because it’s reasonable to do. So you don’t think about the action and its consequences, you don’t think about the reason why. Accordingly, tradition is opposite to progress.What is your point of view about traditions? Do you remember the tradition in Julian Barnes’s story, that one about sleeping on a mattress in a barn on the wedding night? And I particularly remember the tradition of burying the mother’s placenta when there is a birth (as someone in my family told me).
👉Can you tell us a very unreasonable tradition you know? 

Something similar happens with proverbs and sayings. A typical case of a saying that can be false is “Better the devil you know than the devil you don't”. And in the story there is also a saying: “Lottery in June / corn be heavy soon.”
👉Are all sayings clichés? Can you explain a saying that isn’t exactly true? I give you some examples:

The pen is mightier than the sword.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
 Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
You are what you eat.
A watched pot never boils.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Time heals all wounds.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Slow and steady wins the race.
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Love is blind.
You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

 

...

In the story, the tradition has lost some parts of the ritual, or some things have been changed, e.g., using papers instead of pieces of wood for the draw. Do you think that this is because traditions tend to keep the essential parts and forget the less important ones?
👉What is your opinion about rituals? Are they necessary for our everyday lives? And are they useful for ceremonies, social situations as a wedding or a funeral?

The story is situated in a small village of 300 inhabitants.
The smaller the society the stronger and less sound are the traditions?
👉What is your view on this?

Mrs Hutchington says “it isn’t fair”. Why? Because she thinks something in the procedure wasn’t correct, or because she knows she’s going to be stoned?
👉In which societies they did lapidation and in which countries they're still doing now?

So being lucky is another important theme in our narration. There’s a wonderful story about the fortune (in the classical or Greek sense) or the destiny ruling our lives: La loteria en Babilonia by Jorge Luis Borges. In the Æneid, they say: Fortune helps audacious people, that is, “chance is something you don’t have: that’s something you must look for”. Or: you cannot wait your chance sitting down, you have to stand up and go for it.
👉In your opinion, do our lives depend most on luck or most on our personal decisions?

Another topic you can find in The Lottery is the question of the scapegoat; that means that, when there are catastrophes or phenomena you aren’t able to explain, you attribute them to some sin or bad action someone has done, and so this person has to pay for it, and, if you don’t know the guilty one, you’ll have to choose someone (using a lottery, e.g.) to pay for it. That will stop new disasters. Religion explains this as a sacrifice: you have to do a sacrifice to soothe the gods, and that means killing an animal or a person. You already know the legend of Saint George and the Dragon: every year they had to choose a maiden to feed the Dragon.
👉Can you remember other examples of scapegoats?