The Fib
"Steve how could you lie to us like that?" Asked Steve's mom
"I couldn't figure out how to tell you," replied Steve, miserably.
That is something similar to what happened in the short story "The Lie" by Kurt Vonnegut, which tells the story of a young man named Eli who is going to boarding school. As Eli finds out, however, lying isn't always the right thing to do.
Eli is just one of the characters in the lie. Eli is nervous and not very smart because he failed the entrance exam and spun the lie. Mrs. Remenzel is another character, who's Eli's mother. Mrs. Remenzel is pretty, and was a poor country girl before she met Dr. Remenzel. She cares more about the Remenzel's heritage and more about Eli than Dr. Remenzel. Dr. Remenzel is another character. He is Eli's dad and is smart, rich, and cocky. He also cares more about the Remenzel's public figure than his son.
Part of the Remenzel's public figure is his boarding school, White Hill, which is a symbol in the story. That symbol means expectance from his family to go there. Another symbol is the Rolls Royce, which means richness because Rolls Royce cars are very expensive. The quatrain in the brochure is another symbol. It means the anthem. Yet another symbol is the Africans. The Africans symbolize an oddity because Africans normally weren't known as the upper class back then. The last symbol is the note that Eli and his parents got in the mail and Eli tore up. The note represents despair because it says that Eli isn't getting into White Hill.
"The Lie" is a comedy starting off with a normal everyday life. The normal life is just the Remenzels Driving in their Rolls Royce. The next part of a comedy is a conflict arising. The conflict arises when Eli lies to his parents. The part of a comedy after that is main character fully realized the conflict. This happens when Eli knows what he's done when he lied. A resolution occurs when Mrs. and Dr. Remenzel find out about the lie and forgive him. The last part of a comedy is going back to normal everyday life which is when Eli and his parents go home.
Eli did find out that lying isn't the right thing to do when his dad makes a mistake and no more Remenzels are going to be going to White Hill anymore and they go home. It's ironic because Dr. Remenzel told Mrs. Remenzel that he didn't want Eli having special treatment when he asks for it in the end of the story. Lying may seem to be good and get you out of trouble, but in the end it'll just get you into more trouble than it's worth.
The Magic Birds
"Who worries about cormorants?" Kano asked. "The skies are full of cormorants for the taking."
Yoshi replied, "Grandfather says we owe them kindness. We…..
"What do I care what your grandfather says?"
Those were the exact words from the short story, Magic and the Night River by Eve Bunting. It tells the story of a young man named Yoshi and his grandfather who have a very strange way of fishing with birds, cormorants. As Yoshi finds out however, there's more to the cormorants, and his grandfather, than meets the eye.
The cormorants are just one of the symbols in this story. They symbolize working, while another symbol, the river, symbolizes home to the bounty. The bounty, of course, is what the fish symbolize. Another symbol is the lantern which symbolizes light. The last symbol is the string that the fishermen hold in their fingers, which symbolizes control.
The main character(and also one of the fishermen) is named Yoshi and he is one of the many characters in Magic and the Night River. Yoshi is a strong teenager that is very skilled and quick with his hands. Another main character is Grandfather. He is an old man and has old hands with yellow nails, gentle hands. Two more characters are Take and Masa. The are Yoshi's cousins and row the boat that grandfather and Yoshi are in. The bad character is Kano. He is greedy, self centered, and cares nothing for the cormorants. The last character is Itchi-ban, the cormorant. He is Yoshi and Grandfather's favorite cormorant.
The mode of this short story is Romance partly because there are magic birds, like Itchi-ban, in it. It starts out with a mild conflict which is that Yoshi and Grandfather aren't getting enough fish and are going to lose their rented boat. The mild conflict continues when everyone's string gets tangled and Yoshi and Grandfather let go of their cormorants while the other fishermen try to get the lines untangled(with little success). The life affirming symbolism is a new beginning. The new beginning is that the cormorants come back and Yoshi and Grandfather get tons of fish and are going to be able to have some birds on the string and some birds flying around, so they get to keep the boat.
There is definitely more to the cormorants than meets the eye. Itchi-ban was the first cormorant to come back with no string on, because he is Yoshi's favorite bird, and he was the start of Grandfather and Yoshi's good fortune. After everything you still may wonder how a man with old hands, gentle hands could be so magical.
