Activity: "Death By Scrabble"

Hello guys!


Well, so you don't feel lost after reading this activity you may first read the story "Death by Scrabble", by Charlie Fish on the Internet http://www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/scrabble.html

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I find Charlie Fish' s writing style is similar to mine, though he usually uses really simple sentences like:

"I play, appropiately, BEGIN. With the N on the little pink star. Twenty-two points"

or

"She tells me she has lousy letters. For some reason, I hate her more"

But I believe he only uses this simple sentences to make the reader feel some sort of monotony, the one the character has in his life, the lack of exciting things in his every-day life and the rigid, boring routine he has to bear while living with his hated wife.

The whole story makes me admire the writer's creativity. He uses a game that many people find lousy and boring like Scrabble as the center of the story, and makes a bad-turned marriage's life spin around it while he decorates it with annoying flies, hot ewather and even an earthquake.




In this amazingly-built story we can find certain literary devices. The most used device is the image. We can find many examples of this literary device in "Death by Scrabble". A few of them would be:

"It's a blistering hot Sunday afternoon and all I can think of to do with my life is to play Scrabble"

This expresses clearly how hot was the weather in the story.

"The rage gets to my fingertips and passes. My heart is beating. I'm sweating. I think my face actually twitches. Then I sigh deeply, and sit back into my chair"

Here we get the feeling of how mad the character is at his wife.

In the story we can find the presence of few Onomatopeia. An example of it would be:

"An insect, buzzing around above the Scrabble board, surfing the thermals from the tepid cup of tea."

In the story we could say the narrator acts as the protagonist, while his wife is his antagonist character. There are also a couple metaphores, like:

"The heat of the sun is pushing at me through the window"

The writer gives the story a really denotated tone. Through the constant sentences in the story, where the narrator expresses his hate for his wife, we can get a sort of a tense feeling, the feeling that the marriage doesn't work anymore but for some unknown reason they are still together. There are also some sentences and adjectives that gives us the feeling their life is monotonous: uninterrupted sound like the whistle of the kettle, the buzzing of flies or the sound of Scrabble and letters being rearrenged, or the horrible heat that seems to push the main character through the window

Now, welcome to the near future!

Next comes the activity from 29/09/09:

1) Is last in the entry called "My "Welcome" carpet

2) Literature is for me a sort of an escape exit (not an emergency exit, but an escape exit). The stress of the city lifestyle, the traffic jams, politics and insecurity (Caracas, my hometown and capital of Venezuela, is a huge, loud city where you can get robbed almost behind every corner. Plus, in rush hour, every single asphalt centimeter is occupied by cars, making the whole city look like a enormous parking lot) are left behind that door that is called literature. There is where I can go whenever I need to and take a break to think, reflect and sometimes even rest. Summarized, to unplug myself from world power.

3) Never be close-minded. Whenever I read a book and I start finding it boring, that makes me keep reading it, because my opinion is there are really few bad books out there.
I also believe that the saying "Do not judge a book by its cover" speaks the truth, (and I'm talking about books, not people) because it has happened me a million times. (With people too)

4) Structure. A story should be well structured. I find it is a really hard thing to do, that's why I deeply respect writers.

My "Welcome" carpet

Welcome to my weblog!


I have the honor to present you my blog! (applauses)
Now ladies and gentlemen comes the worse part of the story. The thing is that here I must write absolutely everything in English! Yes, I know that might sound a little weird to you, but this is an assignment I must complete during my last year at school for English class, so I'll try to make this as painless as possible!


This weblog is a site where you can find many interesting things. Pictures I've taken, works of art I like or I've seen somewhere around the world (whoa, I type this as if I had traveled around the globe...), news, and many other things inside an english-speaking environment. (Again, this is an assignment!) In the near future you will be seeing assignments and other stuff posted here (I hope). So, have fun!