Home Reading. Lesson 1.. William Saroyan. The Filipino and the Drunkard.

Home Reading. Lesson 1.

William Saroyan. The Filipino and the Drunkard.

The aim of the lesson is to teach you to determine the purpose of a short story through the analysis of the character’s dramatic monologue and through the description of his changing emotions.

1. Read aloud the words and phrases which may characterize: a) the Filipino; b) the American who was drunk.

Loud-mouthed, frightened, swearing, squeezing out of the other man’s way, trying his best to be as decent as possible, making a commotion, looking for a place to hide, answering with curses, trembling, feeling humiliated, fearing the rage growing in himself

2. Reproduce the following information:

William Saroyan is a famous American writer. There is no genre in literature he didn’t try his hand at. He wrote novels, plays and short stories. He was a born story-teller. His stories are vivid, exciting and tragi-comic pictures of life. But no matter what Saroyan wrote about, the subject matter of his stories was the dignity of man. His stories are full of compassion for those who have to bear the injustices of life.

3. Sum up the story according to the multiple choices:

I. An American who was drunk, took a dislike to a young Filipino, and

a) began to laugh at him.

b) began to beat him.

c) began to order him about.

II. The boy was trying hard to:

a) answer back in a witty manner.

b) get out of the drunkard’s way.

c) make the American angrier and angrier.

III. When they got on the boat, the Filipino:

a) occupied the best seat.

b) asked the others to defend him.

c) tried to hide in the lavatory.

IV. When the American started pounding at the door, the other men:

a) got away so as to keep out of trouble.

b) tried to stop the drunkard.

c) laughed at the absurd situation.

V. Deeply humiliated, the boy began:

a) to feel lost and miserable.

b) to cry for help.

c) to fear his own rage growing.

VI. When the American caught him by the throat, the Filipino:

a) struck him with his knife several times.

b) managed to run away.

c) asked him to let him go.

VII. Before the boy was arrested, he shouted at the crowd,

a) because they had refused to hide him from the police.

b) because they hadn’t prevented the tragedy.

c) because they had called him bad names.

4. The greatest image literature relies upon is creation of a character. Even if it is a landscape or townscape it’s all about the human being, for it is viewed from some person’s eyes. Literature is sharing experience, and characters should possess both generalized and individual features. Some writers are interested in characters with a great number of individual features, creating real personalities (e. g. L. N. Tolstoy, Ch. Dickens etc. ). Other authors prefer to create characters with generalized features only. Such characters are called types (e. g. J. Swift). Sometimes in a generalized image one quality may stand for the whole image (e. g. Othello, Don Juan etc. )

To what types of characters do Saroyan’s personages belong? Explain it in detail.

5. Dramatic monologue is a kind of monologue addressed to listeners, and not to the speaker himself (unlike Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be”, which is addressed to the speaker himself, and is not a dramatic monologue, but a soliloquy, coming from the word “solo”, which means “one”). A piece of dramatic monologue can be given in the third person (through the author’s speech) or in the first person.

Explain how the pieces of dramatic monologue given in the story characterize: a) the Filipino; b) the drunkard.

6. The author is very good at showing the gradual change of the characters’ emotions. He begins with telling us that the poor Filipino was becoming very frightened…..

Select the information that may help you to show how the boy’s emotions change in the course of the story. Begin with the above-given opening sentence.

7. Describe the behaviour of the people who witnessed the whole situation. Whose fault is it that the story ended up in a tragedy? What do you think? Could the tragedy be prevented?

8. In a real work of literature nothing is accidental. If an author makes use of some device, he/she does it on purpose. The plot of the story under discussion is rather simple. We can retell it just in a few sentences. Explain, why does W. Saroyan uses such a simple plot? What does he want to show us?

9. From the very beginning we can feel that something bad will happen. Nevertheless we are surprised by the end of the story. What is there that creates the so-called defeated expectancy?

NB: Defeated expectancy is a stylistic device, which takes place when something absolutely different from what we’ve expected happens.

10. Prepare a speech about the story using the substitution table:

In the story Saroyan takes He uses The event takes place The characters are Saroyan manages He wants to say that The story makes us feel

compassion for the man who is humiliated. on board a ship sailing to Oakland. the Filipino, the American drunkard and the crowd. dramatic monologue as one of his main devices. a simple plot to show the tragic results of people’s indifference to indecent behaviour. the passive observers also share the responsibility for the tragic event. to say much in little.

11. What is the message of the story? What does the author want to bring home to the reader? Explain what makes the story vivid and exciting.

12. What is your impression of the story? Share your opinion with the group mates!

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