George Stoyonovich is the main character in Bernard Malamud's short story "A Summer's Reading". George is a 20-year-old young man who lives in a poor neighborhood of immigrants. Along the story, George tries to find something to do with his life, on the one hand but he also shows amazing laziness and idleness, on the other hand. I identified with George, because I can understand what he's feeling - I can be very lazy too, and I can sometimes feel just like George, that I need something "real" to do with my life.
George is very skinny and he is a descendant of a Polish family who immigrated to Bronx, New York City – growing up in a neighborhood of many immigrants, where everybody knew everybody. He quit school at the age of sixteen, most likely because he was uninstitutional and couldn't handle the teachers' demands. George always cared about what his environment thought of him and always wanted to be liked. Still, he didn't really have any friends or acquaintances, and the only three people in his life – after his mother's death – was(gr. - were) his father, whom we don't know much about, his sister Sophie, who's never at home because she finances the family, and last – but not least – Mr. Cattanzara, George's "change maker", the person who led George to educate himself and find his happy ending.
George does the same thing every day - he has a daily routine which is lazy. He doesn't seem to enjoy it very much, because he is always looking for something to do with himself. He becomes sick of anything he tries to do with his life, and he does nothing. But finally, George learns his lesson thanks to one important person; Mr. Cattanzara. Mr. Cattanzara is George's neighbor, whose life story greatly resembles George's life story. Mr. C is very smart and intelligent, and still – he couldn't manage to educate himself like he should have done. Mr. C directs George to do the right thing, and tells him not to "do the mistake he did". Mr. C is the only person who knows how to help George, based on his own sad experiment.
In my idea, George is the excellent example to show what happens when you're just too lazy. I think George is smart but intelligent, but he just couldn't educate himself within an institution like regular school or evening courses. That's completely fine but it's also a waste. When I was reading about George's daily routine and lifestyle I felt sorry for his blindness – he just couldn't see that he was wasting his life on… nothing. So at the end, when he counted off 100 books and started to read them, I felt serene and happy – because for the first time in his life, George was able to open his eyes.
Excellent work! I'm so proud of you.
(100)
Daphna
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment