Constructed Response

by: Kobe Greenan

“A Dark Brown Dog”

In the short story “A Dark Brown Dog” by Stephen Crane. The point of view is 3rd Person Omniscient. It’s this point of view because if you were to read the story, the narrator knows all about the characters and their thoughts and feelings. For example, “ But the little dark-brown dog took this chastisement in the most serious way, and no doubt considered that he had committed some grave crime,” The author writes this to show a detailed way of how the dog is feeling. The tone of this story is very dark with the occasional dark humor. “He came home and held carnival with the cooking utensils, the furniture and his wife.” The word carnival has a fun and positive connotation. However, to use it in a sentence involving kitchen utensils. That’s pretty dark. The point of view of this story really makes me feel involved in the story. I can really feel what all the other characters are feeling and thinking rather than one character in a first person story. The tone makes me feel kind of depressed and sad because I really feel bad for the dog and the boy and the ending really gets to you and gets you all depressed.

“The Day I Got Lost”

In the short story “The Day I Got Lost” by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the point of view is 1st person because in the story, it is being told by one character. “It is easy to recognize me.” The tone of this story is rather humorous and has a nice feeling to it, because he is always misplacing things and just to hear him talk about this is kind of funny. For example, “One evening I took a taxi because I was in a hurry to get home. The taxi driver said, "Where to?" And I could not remember where I lived.”  That’s pretty humorous if I do say so myself. It also has a nice feeling because when his friend finally showed up too get him back too his house he was like “‘Only God could have sent you!’” The sentence all around has a possitive connotation. The point of view in this story really makes you feel for the character. I mean it’s not like 3rd person where you know all the characters, but you still get a good sense of what this character is going through. The tone makes me feel happy and humorous, because too know someone that loses everything anywhere and forgets everything. That’s pretty funny and that’s why I like this story.

"The Names" by: Billy Collins
In this poem, the authors purpose is to tell you about all the deaths of 9/11 and the emotion of their loved ones. "I walked barefoot among thousands of flowers, heavy with dew like the eyes of tears, each had a name," "the flowers heavy with dew," is the tears and sadness of those who have lost their loved ones and when he says "each had a name," he is talking about the people who have died. Also, in the poem he names the people who had died in alphabetical order. "And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows, I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened, then Baxter and Calabro" The silver gaze is sort of like the sadness and depression of the people, I believe and he went in order of the people who had died alphabetically. The tone of this poem is rather depressing, because he speaks of these people who had died and the people who had lost the ones the loved. It really lets you know how tragic 9/11 was.