A Visit to Grandmother

For the past few weeks, my classmates and I have been reading the short story " A Visit to Grandmother " by William Melvin Kelley. The author presents the characters' traits throughout the story using two different methods, direct and indirect characterization. For instance, the author presents the characteristics of Charles's brother GL in direct characterization where he clearly states GL traits and they are not portrayed through dialogue."GL, who seemed part con man, part practical joker and part Don Juan." Then also comes the example of describing Grandmother's characteristics, also through direct stating and not dialogue. " She looked like a doll, made of black straw, the wrinkles in her face running in one direction like the head of a broom. Her hair was white and coarse and grew out straight from her head..." While on the other hand, Charles's characteristics can be inferred from dialogue, "but Charles wouldn't never send my grandson to see me. I never even hear from Charles." We can infer that Charles and his mother aren't close and there seems to be some kind of conflict between them. Even though the grandmother is directly characterized, she is also indirectly characterized, " The old lady eyed his father."Rose, who that? Rose?" She squinted. " We can infer from the above selection that the grandmother has poor eyesight. Although she squinted, she still couldn't identify who was at the door.


-D.A

The Wind—

"The Wind—tapped like a tired man " by Emily Dickinson is one of the best poems I have ever read. We can depict that the wind symbolizes someone or something that's is so special to us that we try to hold on to, but find no way of anchoring it in our belongings. It could be a happy memory or a sad one, but we just like its presence in our lives. The poet conveys her feelings to us readers by using sensory language and figures of speech, thus creating a clear image of the setting and mood. We can understand from this poem that the poet misses a certain incident or person in her life that she wants to keep close to her. We can also see how much effect the memory has on the poet's life when she says "and I became alone—" , and that the sound of the wind symbolizing the memory is like listening to the sound of numerous Hummingbirds flying off off a bush.

-D.A

Hello :)

Hey Everyone! I'm Dima Arafat, 15 years young. I go to Dar Jana International School. Reading the blog name, you probably already know I'm a tenth grader, and I have to survive SATs and school tests this year. Hopefully I'll make it through the year and actually enjoy it. I'll mostly be posting some schoolwork, but I'll try to post about other subjects too. Stay tuned! :)

-D.A