Video Clip of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" Response

Author’s Note: This is my response to the video of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” originally written by Ernest Hemingway. I will analyze it, and evaluate it.

I noticed in the video clip for “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” that the music was really off. It was a good choice for music for this story because it matches the mood and theme of the story. I also noticed how bright the cafe was, even when it was dark. The lighting made it seem really clean and well-lighted hence the title of the story.

One of the things that I liked about the story was that the message was clear. The two waiters were talking about the old man, and the looks on each of their faces made people know what was going on. When the old man left, the older waiter looked like he was going to cry, and that’s a hint that the older waiter was wise, sympathetic, and understanding for the old man. The younger waiter showed signs of annoyance such as rubbing his face, and having an attitude to both the other waiter and the old man. The reason I like how the story was put together is because the message was clear through the actor’s actions and tone of voice.

A Sequence of Unlucky Adventures

Author’s Note: I wrote this essay because I am currently reading “A Series of Unfortunate Events” By Lemony Snicket (a series of books). The reason I titled this piece “A Sequence of Unlucky Adventures” is because it is using all the words in the real series, but synonyms for each of them. This is a text analysis piece about how the author planned the stories out. I thought this was a good idea for the books because of how the author wrote each of the books within the series.

“A Series of Unfortunate Events” by Lemony Snicket is really a series of unfortunate events. The three Baudelaire children, the main characters, have a domino-effect life that doesn’t work out too well. Each unfortunate event that happens leads to another, and another, and another, hence the name “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

The author, Lemony Snicket, uses the same plot for each book except for the last book in the long series, “The End.” In the first book, the ‘bad guy’ is introduced. His name is Count Olaf, and is willing to do anything to gain the money that the children’s parents left behind when they died in a fire, and each time, his plan fails and he escapes. In the next book, he always comes back in some new disguise, attempting yet again to inherit the Baudelaire fortune. I thought that it was interesting how the author set up each book, with a new clue each time. Sometimes, Olaf escapes with the children’s friends or something important to them, and they have to find out how to get those things back without falling into the clutches of Olaf. The author used an interesting method for these books, because once one book ends with Olaf escaping, the reader is on the edge of their seat, looking forward to the moment they can read the next book.

Not only does Lemony Snicket bring the bad guy into each book, he also uses the other important characters in each of the books. For example, in the second book which is called “The Reptile Room,” the author brings an important character in that was from the first book, and who is also in the third. This character is Mr. Poe, and he is a banker in charge of putting the children in a safe home. He appears towards the beginning, end, or both when he puts the children in a new home each book. Mr. Poe has the same personality in each book, too, because he always has a cough and never gets help quick enough.

The books may sound like they’re boring and predictable, but there are a lot of times in the book where something surprising happens. The author writes the books in such a way that it makes the reader want to read more. The author adds new and unpredictable parts to each book at the end to add more suspense so the reader will go to the library or bookstore and get the next one in the series. I haven’t read the whole series yet, but I can predict that the book will have many more surprises and many more things revealed. The last book is called “The End” and is about three times longer than the other 12 books, so more of the mysteries throughout the series will be solved in the last one.

As you can see, the author of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” had a good plan to get more readers. He set up the series in a way that makes the readers want to read more, but it also has the readers guessing what will happen next. A mystery comes up in the children’s lives that is most likely going to be solved in the next book or the book after that, so it makes the reader read more and more eventually finishing the whole series, knowing everything.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Author's Note: I chose: "Pick out at least three phrases/quotes which you think are especially important to the story (what you might mark on a printed text.) Briefly describe why you chose each."

I think that there are a few phrases or quotes from the story that were important for the understanding of the story:

1.) "...he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep."

This is an important thing because it shows that he doesn't like sleeping at night, he likes sleeping during the day and staying awake during the night.

2.) ""We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the cafe.""

This is also important to the story because it shows that both of the waiters have different views on why the man is there, and the older one has much more wise things to say than the younger waiter.

3.) ""No, it is not," agreed the waiter with a wife. He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry."

The younger waiter doesn't realize that he is being rude, and he is also not learning anything from what the older waiter says. He isn't figuring things out for himself, either.

The Ransom of Red Chief

Author's Note: This is my response to my quote from the short story "Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry. I have the quote stated first, then the reason why I think it's the most interesting part of the story.


"Red Chief," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"
"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?"
"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a while."
"All right!" says he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life."

I think that this is the most interesting part of the story because the kid reveals that he doesn't want to go home. This is proof that the kid's parents don't let him have fun, so when he is taken by Bill and the other man who took the kid, he doesn't want to return to his parents. He says in the story that he doesn't have any fun at home, he hates going to school, and he likes to camp out. He likes being in the cave and 'playing' with the kidnappers because he didn't have to go home or go to school, and he was outdoors. The quote from the story basically sums up why the kid isn't fighting them or begging them to go home to his parents. The parents obviously don't want the kid back, so when the two men ask for two-thousand dollars in ransom, the parents ask money from them to take the annoying pesk of a kid off their hands. They asked for two-thousand dollars, and ended up paying two-hundred and fifty dollars to have the kid taken away from them.

The Book vs. The Movie

Author’s Note: I wrote this piece because I noticed that a lot of books have a movie based on the book a few years after. You are probably dreading the fact that I am going to do a compare and contrast piece between “The Hunger Games” books and movies, but I can assure you that I am not going to relate anything in this piece (besides this author’s note) to “The Hunger Games.” This is more of a piece about the differences and similarities that I and other people seem to notice between different books and the movies that go along with them.

When a book becomes really popular, movie producers make a movie based off of the book. Sometimes, the movie is made soon after the book is published, but other times, the movie is made years after. There are, of course, a lot of books out there that have been published and do not have a movie based off of it, but there are a lot of books that have been. More and more books are being written, and more and more movies have been made recently.

A lot of movies are based on a book. But not all of the movies include all of the details that are mentioned in the book are in the movie. Most of the time, the character has a lot of thoughts going on in their head. Normally, these “thoughts” are just things that are going on in the story, but the character is processing everything and thinking about what’s happening. But in the movie, you have to watch and see what happens, instead of “hearing” the characters thoughts.

Most of those thoughts are either what’s going on then or in the past. Sometimes, in a book, the chapters switch back and forth between then and now, otherwise known as the past and the present. In the movie for that book, it’s the same. The character appears to have a flashback of some sort, and it is normally obvious when that’s happening because the edges of the screen are blurry, or in slow motion. Sometimes, the voices of the people in the memory are really quiet, loud, or echoey. That’s a similarity that can occur between the same book and movie.

That’s a thing that’s similar with the book and the movie, but a lot of the time, most people imagine a book differently than the movie that comes out. Let’s say in the book, someone imagines a house that’s painted yellow, but in the movie, it’s painted blue. Seeing the movie and reading the book can give you different images of the story. Not all movies match the book exactly, and some details are different in the movie. Sometimes, characters have blonde hair in the book, but in the movie, they’re a brunette. That can mess up the image of the story that you had in the first place. There are plenty of older books that came out years ago that now have a movie.

Sometimes, people don’t even read the book (that normally comes out before the movie), and then they just go to see the movie. Other times, they might only read the book and not go see the movie. For example, the book “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel was published in 2001, and the movie just came out recently. Once the movie came out and everyone went to see it, they read the book because it was really popular. As you can see, there are a lot of differences and similarities between a book and the movie.