The Old Man Isn T There Anymore By Kellie Shmney Analysis

The Old Man Down the Hall The story “The Old Man Isn’t There Anymore” by Kellie Schmitt is about a lady who lives in China that tries to make friends with the people in her apartment. She does this by sending sympathy flowers to the family of the old man that passed away. She then later attends the funeral of the old man. In the end Schmitt creates a funny twist. Schmitt created an intriguing story about a person’s experience in China. The author starts the short story by telling the reader “I found myself in a Chinese funeral parlor because of a phone call I made to my cleaning lady.” (Schmitt, 107). This makes the reader wonder what the phone call was about that lead her to a Chinese funeral. This also leads to many more questions like: Why is she in China? What does a Chinese funeral parlor look like? Is she friends with the cleaning lady? Some of these questions are answered later on in the story while others are left to the reader’s imagination. The lady was wondering why the

This would make the reader think that she does not know the language very well. She had to use the vocabulary she did know so she asked, “Do you know why the neighbors are very sad?” (Schmitt, 107). The cleaning lady responded in a “baby Chinese way of telling me he died” (Schmitt, 107). The cleaning lady seemed to pick up on that she did not know Chinese very well, so it seems reasonable for her to respond in “baby Chinese” (Schmitt, 107). However, it is interesting that she knew that the cleaning lady spoke back in “baby Chinese” rather than speaking in proper or more complex Chinese (Schmitt, 107). The cleaning lady may have also responded in that way since she knows that she is a foreigner. Normally speaking foreigners would know basic or little of a foreign language in a country they are visiting or staying