Weaving Edu Tapestry

  An Analysis of the Theme and Plot of   A Long Walk Home Summary of the Short Story Boccaro’s  A Long walk Home  is a short story that tells how Jackson, a teen with a delinquent tendency, grows wiser after experiencing a bitter experience with his father. It begins when one morning Jackson is asked to have his father’s car repaired in a garage 18 miles away from their home on condition that when the car is finished, Jackson should pick his father at 4 p.m. since the car requires a few hours to be serviced, after dropping of it to the garage, he watches some movies up to 6 p.m. To avoid his father from getting angry for his being late, Jackson says that it takes long to repair the car without realizing that his father has phoned the garage and knows there’s no problem with the car. Jackson’s lie makes his father angry to himself for his failure to educate his son. So he refuses to get into the car and walks home. This makes Jackson very regretful and decides not to ...

Type of Plots  The plot used in fictions can be differentiated into four types: linear, episodic, parallel, and flashback. The most common plot employed in short stories is the linear plot. Some short stories, though quite rarely, also use flashback plot. The episodic and parallel plots, however, are found only in long fiction, i.e. novels. Short storied do not use episodic and parallel plots because short stories normally concentrate on a single event with a very limited number of characters, while episodic and parallel plots include a series of events or more than one plot. The following section describes each plot briefly. The Linear Plot The linear plot (sometimes is also called dramatic or progressive plot) presents action or occurrences chronologically. It typically starts with an exposition (or introduction to the setting and characters) and the conflict. After that, the rising action follows which leads to a climax. Soon after the climax, falling action emerges which br...

  PLOT Definition of Plot A Plot is a series of interconnected events that make up a story. A story consists of some events that are purposively linked by an unbroken cause-effect chain. If the events that are not linked one to another, they do not form a story. Thus, to form a story, Event A must cause Event B, Event B must cause Event C, Event C must cause Event D, and so on. If Event B occurs unrelatedly to Event A, and Event C could have occurred without Event B, These three events (A, B, and C) do not form a plot. They are just a collection of unrelated events. They do not construct a story.   To get an example, let’s consider Boccaro’s A Long walk Home . In the story, the event of when Jackson is asked to take the car to a garage, drives his father to Mijas, puts the car to the garage, and watches some movies are interrelated. He will not drive his father to Mijas and watches the movies if he is not asked to take the car to a garage. He might even not decide to sto...

  Also known as a synopsis, precis, or abstract, a summary is a shortened version of a longer piece of reading (text) that highpoints its key contents. Clee and Clee (1999) state that the main objective of a summary is to "give an accurate, objective representation of what the work says." Thus, "you should not include your own ideas or interpretations." In other words, you should  include only information from the story itself.  A summary, however, is not a restatement of all ideas of the story. It does not tell every event occurring in it. A summary just relates the main events without extraneous detail. It condenses the short story's main points  in your own words. Therefore,  you should not  include quotes from the original story. A summary is usually written in a solid paragraph of about up to 10 sentences. The first sentence includes the short story title, author, and subject matter. The next sentences include the main supporting events or ...

  In this article , it is explained that every short story is unique in the sense that the elements contained by every work vary from one to another. However, since a short story is a narrative fiction that involves a limited number of characters engaged in a single event taking place in a limited setting, all short stories share similar types of elements. To get a comprehensive understanding of a short story, we need to analyze its elements, including subject matter, theme, characters, actions, setting, and the language employed as the medium. This article focuses on subject matter and theme. Before discussing the concepts related to subject matter and theme, read the following flash fiction. It will be used as a reference to clarify the concepts.   The Boulder on the Road In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. He then hid himself and watched to see if anyone would move the boulder out of the way. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers cam...

  The previous article discusses that a short story is a type of fiction. Therefore it shares the features of fictional works with novelette and novel. A short story is different from a novelette and novel in terms of length. Short stories are commonly 500 to 7,500 words. A novelette is between 7,500 to 17,000 words and novels are more than 17,000 words. But what makes short stories fiction? This article discusses the six special features of fiction suggested by Alternbend and Lewis (1966) and shows how they are contained in short stories. The six features of fiction include: fiction is dramatic, concrete and specific, generally representative, instructs and entertains, is related to life, and creative and imaginative. To illustrate how these features pertain to short stories, three flash (very brief) stories are used as samples. Short stories are dramatic. Read the following very short story. The Blind Girl There was a blind girl who hated herself purely for the fact sh...