Excuses, we all come up with one sometime in our lives. Girls make excuses constantly when they are being hit on or when a stranger starts a conversation with them. It is just our way of getting out of situations we are not necessarily comfortable in. In David Ives play, Sure Thing, we see that the main characters are struggling to hold an intriguing conversation with one another. Betty, always trying to find an easy way out of the conversation. Bill, always trying to find a way to start the conversation again. Bill, just wants to find the right combination of words to make Betty interested in him. Sure Thing does amount to more than just a series of fragments and failures. In the play, Bill tries everything he possibly can to make Betty find him attractive in some way. But, as he finds out, there are numerous ways to put an end to a conversation. Sure Thing …show more content…
Since he is starting to ask more personalized questions, he has a better chance of winning Betty over. He begins to question what book Betty is reading. When Betty replies, “The Sound and the Fury,” Bill confidently responds with, “Oh. Hemingway” (1188). But the bell rings, and Bill corrects himself. “Oh. Faulkner,” Bill states. When Betty wonders if Bill has ever read the book, Bill indicates, “I’m a Mets fan, myself” (1188). Having nothing to do with the conversation, the bell sounds. Bill recovers himself by replying, “I read it in college.” Prompting Betty to ask, “Where was college?” After giving numerous replies that do not strike any interest, Bill tries a new approach. Instead of mentioning college, Bill mentions he spent a whole season reading Faulkner. This gives Betty a new interest and the conversation continues, until it ends with an awkward pause (1189-1190). Slowly, Betty is warming up to Bill. Giving him hope that their conversation can go further. It is not that easy, though. Betty seems to be witty with her quick
She then moves on to describe each of the characters, and in doing so, their surroundings and how they fit in: "He was cold and wet, and the best part of the day had been used up anyway. He wiped his hands on the grass and let the pinto horse take him toward home. There was little enough comfort there. The house crouched dumb and blind on the high bench in the rain. Jack's horse stood droop-necked and dismal inside the strand of rope fence, but there wasn't any smoke coming from the damned stove (28)."
a.) “About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance” (214)
With his repetition of phrases such as “it really did” and “if you want to know,” his use of slang including “take a leak” and “booze hound,” and his coarse language, Holden gives the novel an upbeat, optimistic feeling, despite the book’s darker theme. Holden’s tone and diction allow the reader to relate to him and imagine him as a friend.
Salinger, J. D.. The Catcher in the Rye. [1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 19511945. Print.
When the narrator and Sonny finally get a chance to speak to each other after many years, they begin to slowly open up to each other the grim reality that they face.
Spoto, Donald. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.,1985
Gillman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems Plays, and Essays. Fourth Edition. Ed. Judith A. Stanford. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 604-616.
Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.12th ed. New York: Pearson, 2013. Print.
The moment their eyes first meet, there seems to be an immediate attraction between Blanche and Mitch, causing them to take a “certain interest” in one another. After their first close encounter while the poker game is taking place, Blanche notices that Mitch is not like Stanley and the others. Telling Stella, “That one seems—superior to the others…I thought he had a sort of sensitive look” (Williams 52), Blanche takes interest in Mitch’s perceived sensitivity, and is immediately attracted
This is quite evident after the demise of their mother whereby the narrator intends to know as the eldest brother what Sonny intends to do in life before returning to war. He contends, “I’m going to be a musician (Baldwin 133).” This does not go well with the narrator who deems other people can embrace that life’s path but not his brother, hence brewing a discrepancy and misunderstanding amid them. It is through Sonny’s choice of pursuing jazz that unveils numerous flaws that characterizes their relationship with the narrator who insist of him completing the school first but eventually admits reluctantly. The extent of confusion and misunderstanding his Sonny is evident how the narrator can hardly imagine him in life he will be hanging in nightclubs in the company of others whom he refers as “good-time-people” (Baldwin 134). Probably, it is Sonny’s choice of jazz career that leads to long durations of silence among them without keeping in touch because the narrator feels his younger brother opted to embracing wrong life. In addition, the instilled notion of how reckless “good-time-people” (134) were by his father yielded to him fighting with Sonny for leading a loose life (Baldwin
Treichler, Paula A. "Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in "The Yellow Wallpaper"." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, 1984: 61-77.
As the narrator makes his way to the courtyard heading home from school, a "friend" of Sonny's, another drug-user, approaches him. The narrator ...
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. Print.
The swift conversations begin in a coffee house with the two main and only characters are Bill and Betty. From the beginning till the end of the play one can see a series of pick up lines, from a man to a woman sitting in a coffee shop reading. The lines start out short and rapid with an equivalent short response from the woman. Each line is separated by a ringing bell. All humans are critical of their fellow human?s beings. They are critical about their looks, cars and etc. Generally there is an old saying ?you never have a second chance to make a first impression.? In this play the author uses a bell as a mechanism of separating the dialogue of subsequent pick up lines, which gives the characters another chance to make a good impression.
The play’s major conflict is the loneliness experienced by the two elderly sisters, after outliving most of their relatives. The minor conflict is the sisters setting up a tea party for the newspaper boy who is supposed to collect his pay, but instead skips over their house. The sisters also have another minor conflict about the name of a ship from their father’s voyage. Because both sisters are elderly, they cannot exactly remember the ships name or exact details, and both sisters believe their version of the story is the right one. Although it is a short drama narration, Betty Keller depicts the two sisters in great detail, introduces a few conflicts, and with the use of dialogue,