Marine POYLO - SPAN B 312 – Latin American Literature in Translation Response Paper 1 - “The Night Face Up”, Julio Cortazar (1967)
Am I dreaming? There is no doubt that this expression of everyday life connoting surprise can also be a deep question that one already wondered more than once. Who has never never woken up in the morning wondering if what happened on the day before – be it good or bad news – was part of a dream or in fact a true reality? It is this blurred boundary between the real and the dreamt world that the Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar explores in his short story “The Night Face Up” (1967) where he describes the story of a motorcyclist hospitalized after an accident and dreaming of a flight from the Aztecs. The extremely detailed description of the atmosphere and the juxtaposition of the dreamt and real words are the two points that caught my attention in Cortazar’s short story.
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66) coupled with a certainly voluntary non description of the protagonist (“he did not have a name”, p. 66) enable the reader to picture the situation from the beginning. Likewise, the description of the Aztecs world is very detailed (“his feet sank into a bed of leaves”, p. 71), which makes the reader living the dream and even forgetting which world is real. This is emphasized by constant juxtaposition in the description of the two worlds (e.g. “He managed to cut the air once or twice” (…) “It’s the fever” the man on the next bed said.” p. 72). The calm tone adopted by the author to describe the hospital room contrasts with the rapid tone chosen to describe the Aztecs world and demonstrate that the protagonist finds reality reassuring. Finally, the reaction of the protagonist’s senses to the dream (e.g. “a marshy smell”, p. 69) reveals how the body reacts to unconscious thoughts and highlights once again this blurred boarder between dream and
Leon-Portilla based the stories told in this book upon old writings of actual Aztec people who survived the Spanish massacres. The actual authors of the stories told in this book are priests, wise men and regular people who survived the killings. These stories represent the more realistic view of what really happened during the Spanish conquest. Most of the history about the Aztec Empire was based on Spanish accounts of events, but Leon-Portilla used writings from actual survivors to illustrate the true history from the Indians’ point of view.
When Jarrell says the words, "hunched in the belly," the reader gets a very uncomfortable feeling. In line number three the reader gets visual imagery as well as slight tactile imagery. The visual imagery comes when Jarrell says, "Six miles from earth." The reader gets a clear image of something being very high above the ground. When the author says, "loosed from the dream of life," the reader gets a slight feeling of death or a vision of someone dying. The fourth line, "I woke to the black flak and the nightmare fighters," brings the reader visual, auditory and tactile imagery. The reader can picture someone waking up to shrapnel, from an exploding bomb, flying by their head. One can hear the gunfire of the, "nightmare fighters," along with the exploding shells. The reader also gets a tactile image when the author says, "I woke up," because everyone knows what it is like to wake up from a sleep. In the fifth and final line the reader gets a very graphic visual image. The reader can picture someone's body being so destroyed that instead of removing the body from the turret the soldiers must wash it out with a hose.
15. What is different with real life babies and those The babies in Tod’s dreams wields
Esperanza, who visited her aunt everyday, was so used to her aunt’s illness that it made her forget about Aunt Lupe’s sickness and impending death. “She had been dying such a long time, we forgot,” says Esperanza, as if she has adapted to Aunt Lupe’s illness. Esperanza has never once thought of her aunt ever literally dying. She believed that Aunt Lupe was already dying, “dying for such a long time” that she has forgotten. “Sometimes you get used to the sick,” says Esperanza, “and sometimes the sickness, if it is there too long, gets to seem
As we entered Conroe Regional, I couldn't help but to think that they finally finished that darn construction and that the water fountain looked much more appealing to visitors. As we entered the elevator I could already smell that “hospital smell”. As we entered the ICU , the only thing going through my mind was the smell, it smelt like death and sterilization,
My feet, without any cloths to protect them were bloody and covered in sores from rubbing against sharp stones. Like some of the horrible bed sores one of my many brothers had gotten years ago. At least that is how I am picturing them in my mind, as couldn’t see them in this light, or lack of. My feet ached, hunger pains were beginning to rise, my head, with such intense pain and that awful, awful feeling that I was not alone. I could feel the hairs on my neck stand as the eerie buzz of silence screamed in my ear. Unconsciously my slow pacing of the perimeter broke into a full speed run.
Toni Morrison introduces the novel by explicitly describing the scene in which the insurance agent, Mr. Smith, stands over the top of the hospital roof with an inclination to fly using his man-made wings while an African-American was born for the first time in Mercy Hospital. This scene sets up the conflicts that many of the characters are struggling through. For example, when Ruth Foster Dead goes into labor in the middle of the whole spectacle, a nurse comes out from inside the hospital and sends a young boy, Guitar, to fetch a guard. However, her attitude and poise depicts a woman who believes herself to be far better worth than the young boy, "Then she...looked again at the cat-eyed boy, and...spoke her next words very slowly to him. 'Listen.
In Guerrero, Mexico 2014, many children who go to school were hijacked in their busses and attacked. In one senario, the bus was hijacked by the students’ own police and were taken away and were never seen again. People had also been found dead showing signs of torture and punishment. In the novel, the main character tells a story of one survivor of people who had been kidnapped. She showed fear for he friend and how it affected the lives of the people around her. People in the novel and in Guerrero dug holes to
In the short story, Fever Dream, Bradbury creates an image of a sterile environment through words such as “fresh, clean, laundered” and “newly squeezed”, Bradbury also describes the ability to hear subtle sounds such as “the toilet gargling”, “rain tap the roof” and “sly mice run”. These images portray a healthy, pure atmosphere that reflects the boy and presents that his “sickness wasn’t too bad” and foreshadows a sickness that will come. Bradbury presents the young
These specific facts make the story more authentic and leave no space for doubts or ambiguities on the reader’s part. All the events taking place within the chamber, though terrifying, are coherent and in correspondence to the place in which the narrator is placed.
In the story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez intertwines the supernatural with the natural in an amazing manner. This essay analyzes how Marquez efficiently utilizes an exceptional style and imaginative tone that requests the reader to do a self-introspection on their life regarding their responses to normal and abnormal events.
Moreover, he combats an overwhelming drive which recalls his extemporised and unmeasured cerebral acts. Nevertheless, the writer opens his eyes; in the morning, therefore, this interminable reality becomes a distinct view in a fake or undeceiving manner; and it drowns his awakening visage.
Enchanted by her serene radiance, I did not disturb her. Suddenly she began to speak in a whispered hum that was more like a song, unique in a dwelling full of ranting outbursts. She spoke of years long past, swimming in the pond with her sister and dancing in the moonlight. I could picture all in my head, like I was watching a movie. Then she began repeating the story she had just told me, and I realized that she was merely talking to herself. Although this discovery disenchanted me at first, I soon realized that, although the woman was talking to herself, she still had so many fantastic stories stored in her mind. The residents of the home all had some life flittering in them and numerous stories to share; they just need someone to listen to them. After my experience at the home I knew that one of my goals in life would always be o help make sure that people were receiving proper treatment, and not merely stuffed away and drugged up.
“AHHH!” I screeched. My voice echoed and I crumpled to the floor. As I lay on the ground, a smell seemed to enter and toxicate the air. I didn’t run, I didn’t fight the urge to fall asleep, I didn’t care if I died right there and then. In my mind I had already died, and my spirit was still back in bed dreaming of nothing important. I was just a body, a body waiting to meet the horror of this white prison. As I lay crying and beginning to holsinate another wave of white washed over me.
The color symbolism of the white hospital room and the red tulips juxtapose the peacefulness of the hospital room with the speaker’s internal conflict regarding their responsibilities.