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Unit 2 – Task 4 - Annotated Bibliography

Adriana Natalia Peña Sanchez

Escuela Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia -

UNAD

Course 551029_18: English Literature

Jessica del Socorro Garcia Cardona

28 de Noviembre, 2021
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Step 1 (Web Conference Participation)

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Step 2 (Screenshot of choosing in the forum)

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Step 3 (Annotated Bibliographies of all participants and screenshots of comments

Adriana Peña

Twain, M. (1870). A Ghost Story. In M. Muñoz, A Small Collection of American Short

Stories. Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia. Recuperado de:

https://repository.unad.edu.co/handle/10596/37292

This story is based on the infamous Cardiff giants’ scam of the 19th century, in which one of
the "petrified giants" was carved in stone and buried in the ground for others to "discover".
People paid in droves to see the giant. After being unable to purchase the statue, legendary
initiator PT Barnum made a copy and claimed it was the original. The narrator rented a room
in New York City in "a huge old building whose top floor was completely uninhabited for
many years." He sat by the fire for a while and then went to bed. He awoke in horror to find
that his sheet was slowly being pulled up. After a dazzling tug-of-war with the sheets, he
finally heard the footsteps fade away. He convinced himself that the experience was just a
dream, but when he got up to light a lamp, he saw a huge footprint in the ashes near the
fireplace. He returned to bed, terrified and restless all night, accompanied by sounds,
footsteps, rattling chains, and other ghostly manifestations. At last, he saw that he was being
pursued by the giant of Cardiff, whom they considered harmless, and all his fears
disappeared. The giant proved to be clumsy, breaking furniture every time he sat down, and
the narrator scolded him for it. The giant explained that he had been wandering around the
building, hoping to persuade someone to bury his body, currently in a museum across the
street so he could take a break. But the ghost was tricked into chasing the wrong body. The
corpse across the street was a Barnum fake, and the ghost left, deeply ashamed.

Chopin, K. (1894). The Story of an Hour. In M. Muñoz, A Small Collection of American

Short Stories. Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia. Recuperado de:

https://repository.unad.edu.co/handle/10596/37292

Mrs. Louis Mallard is a sick woman. Her heart is very weak. So, when her husband is said to
have been killed in a serious train accident, her sister Josephine and her husband's friends tell
her the sad news as gently as possible so as not to hurt her heart. As expected, Louise
continued to cry when she heard the news. She ran upstairs and locked herself in the room.
The tears disappeared and Louise began to think about all the beauty of the outside world.
Suddenly, she realized she was free. When her husband died, she admitted that she would be
very happy. Although sometimes she loves him, sometimes she no longer loves him, which
depresses her very much. Now that he is gone, she can go out into this world, and be "free,
free, free!" Josephine was worried about Louise's health and asked her to leave the room. In
the end, it was true. When she came downstairs, her husband greeted her and she opened the
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door, looking tired, but still alive. Louise screamed and collapsed from a heart attack. The
doctor said he was happy to know her husband was still alive, but the reader knew she was
dead because she was so disappointed at the loss of her newfound freedom.

Annotated Bibliographies of all participants

Neyla Ximena Rojas

Andersen, H. (2020). The Little Match Girl. Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia.

Written in the 19th Century, it tells the story of a poor young girl who dies in the street on New Year’s
Eve. She is afraid her father will beat her up for failing to sell any matches all day, so she stays out
hungry and cold. She lights the matches to keep herself warm and has beautiful visions of comforting
scenes such as roast food a Christmas tree and a fireplace. The visions disappeared as the matches
went off, but she burned the whole pack of matches to keep her last vision longer. That was a beautiful
vision of her grandmother who comforted the little girl as she passed away and took her soul to
heaven. Bypassers found the little girl frozen the following day with a smile on her face and feel sorry
for her without knowing of the joy she had found in the matches and visions.
This is a very moving and descriptive story which almost makes the reader feel the pain and suffering
of the little girl. It is very brief and compact and definitely worth reading. It encourages reflection on
how little things can make all the difference in situations of great misery and how the world seems to
continue unaware of the fate of unlucky people like the little girl.

Hughes, L. (2020). Thank You, M'am. Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia.

This article is a summary and reflection of the short story Thank You M’am written by
American poet Langston Hughes. In the article the author summarises the short story and
makes a reflection of the message that it conveys. The story is about a young boy called
Roger who tries to steal an old woman’s purse, but she catches him and takes him to her
house. She does not punish him but instead treats him with generosity and kindness. The
commentary article puts the story in the social and political context of America during the
mid-twentieth century when the civil rights movement was at the centre of the fight against
racial inequality. They conclude that the main message of the story is that respect, decency,
and love transcend race and class and that those things can make all the difference to people
who do bad things as a result of difficult circumstances. The reviewer has made a good
analysis of the story and gives very good examples to support his conclusions. They have
related the story to their own experience and also explained how it is relevant to current days.
It is overall a very good commentary of the short which can provide not only a good summary
of the story but also help understand the meaning of it.

Comments,
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Gustavo Adolfo Reyes Lopez

A Horseman in the Sky (1889) Ambrose Bierce

In the fall of 1861, in the midst of the American Civil War. A young Union soldier named
Carter Druse has been posted as a sentry near the edge of a cliff in a wooded valley. Five
Union army regiments are hiding in the valley as they rest and prepare to make a surprise
attack on a Confederate camp. Although they are hidden in the valley, they are also
vulnerable; there is only one narrow entrance and one narrow exit. The topography is such
that they would be at a severe disadvantage and could not escape without being discovered.

The narrator briefly recalls the morning Druse left the childhood home. Druse is the son of
wealthy Virginian parents with a comfortable and cultured childhood. Virginian was
expected to fight for the Confederate states. His conscience compelled him to join a passing
Union regiment. At the time, Druse's father called him a traitor, but also encouraged him to
"do what you conceive to be your duty." His father mentions that Druse's mother is on her
deathbed, but if both father and son survive the war, they can reconcile then. Druse and his
father respect each other in their final separation, Druse leaves his parents to become a Union
soldier, proving to be brave and noble.

Despite the importance of Druse's vigilance, he has fallen asleep. However, his rifle already
positioned to be fired, Druse awakens and discovers that while he slept, a lone rider, a
Confederate officer, has slid to the edge of the cliff and is looking down the valley at the
exposed Union soldiers. His face is turned away, but Druse still cannot see his identity.

The horse moves just enough to remind Druse where he is and what he must do. He points
his rifle at the rider's chest. Druse ponders the ethics of killing an unconscious man for the
simple crime of possessing dangerous knowledge. He even briefly considers letting him
wander in the hope that the rider has not actually discovered the Union regiments. Druse
recalls his father's words "divine command," demanding that he put duty before all else.
Druse fires. Both horse and rider fall over the edge of the cliff.

An errant officer of the Union regiments has been found standing below the cliff ledge.
Looking up, he sees the dying rider on his horse. After Druse fires, he reloads and remains
lying in the bush, watching. A sergeant crawls up to his position and asks him what he shot
at. Without moving or looking at him, Druse reveals that the rider he shot down had been his
own father.

The Gift of the Magi (1905) O. Henry

The story begins with $1.87. That's all Della has to buy a gift for her husband, Jim. The next
day is Christmas. Faced with such a situation, Della bursts into tears on the couch. The
narrator tells about Jim and Della's situation. They live in a modest apartment and are poor.
But they love each other.

Once Della stops crying, she goes over to a mirror to let her hair down. Della's beautiful
knee-length hair is one of the poor couple's two great treasures. The other is Jim's gold watch.
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She leaves the house and heads to Madame's barber shop, where she sells her hair for $20.
She now has $21.87. With that money, Della is able to find Jim the perfect gift: a fancy
platinum chain for his watch from him. It's $21 and she buys it.

Excited about her gift, Della returns home and tries to make her short hair presentable. She
doesn't know if Jim approves of her, but she did what she had to do to get him the gift. When
she's done with her hair, she sets about making coffee and dinner. Jim arrives at 7 pm. He
finds Della waiting by the door and stares at her, not understanding that her hair from Della
is gone. Della doesn't know what he means by his reaction. After a while, Jim gives Della
her gift, and explains that her reaction will make sense when she opens it. Della opens it and
screams with joy, Della immediately cries. Jim has given her the set of fancy combs she has
wanted for a long time, but now she has no hair for them.

Once she recovers, she gives Jim his gift from her, holding up the watch chain. Jim smiles,
leaning back on the couch. Jim sold the watch to buy the combs. He recommends that they
put their gifts away and have dinner. As they do, the narrator closes the story by saying that
Della and Jim are the wisest of all gift givers. They are the magicians.

Comments,

Leydi Merchán Arciniegas

The Luck of Roaring Camp, "a story by American author Brett Harte published in 1868, tells
the story of a boy born in a declining gold prospecting camp. Believing the boy brings good
luck, the camp men decide to raise him.

The story begins with the work of Cherokee Sal, the only woman in the camp is a prostitute.
She gives birth, but she does not survive. Things look sad and daunting for the new baby. ,
she dies, leaving the child in the insecure hands of the miners. Men step forward, however,
and the baby survives. He thrives against all odds, and this has a profound change in the camp
men.

Men decide to feed it with donkey milk, the only option they have. It works, and when the
child is one month old, it is thriving. The men become more and more attached to him, and
give him a name "The Kid". The mother is gone and the father is unknown. The men decide
that he has brought luck to the camp and that will be his name. Then they prepare his baptism,
the miners changed their lifestyle, after being simpler imported carpets and already seemed
to be more comfortable, changed habits, before they were rude and now give thanks to God,
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and everything they saw in the field wanted to give as a toy to the child. Their luck seemed
to improve, they severed ties with the others, but then their luck began to change, the snow
came, and the men of the camp thought that with

The miners' struggle with nature is always present in history. At the time Harte wrote the
story, a common theme in literature was the severe and unforgiving spirit of nature.

The story is one of newly found hope and the overwhelming miracle of what hope can do
even in the most desperate place. It is also a testimony to the power of nature both to give
and to take away

Comments,

Daimer David Caro

The Cask of Amontillado

by Edgar Allan Poe

The story narrates the murder committed by a man named Montresor, who wanted to take
revenge on Fortunato, a man who had already insulted him several times and did not want to
endure another insult. The murder was planned for a long time by Montresor and is carried
out at the carnival, Fortunato was dressed as a clown when he meets Montresor, and he tells
him that if he helps him to know if a barrel of amontillado that is about to be sold to him is
real. Montresor takes Fortunato to some catacombs and gets him drunk and due to the
humidity of the catacombs Fortunato's health, who apparently had a cough, gets worse and
worse. Montresor chains Fortunato and puts up a wall so that Fortunato dies and can never
leave the catacombs.

To light a fire
by Jack London

A man wanders with an Eskimo wolfdog in the Yukon River Territory, Canada, near the
border of present-day Alaska, on an extremely cold morning. The cold does not faze the man,
a newcomer to the Yukon who plans to meet his companions at six o'clock in an old shelter.
As it begins to get colder, he realizes that his unprotected cheekbones will freeze, but he
doesn't pay much attention to it. He walks along a trail that follows a frozen stream, aware of
the dangerous hidden springs that may lie beneath: getting his feet wet on such a cold day is
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extremely dangerous. He stops for lunch and lights a fire.

Soon after, the man continues on his way and, in an apparently safe place, sinks into the snow
and gets wet up to his calves. He curses his luck; lighting a fire and drying his footwear will
delay him for at least an hour. His feet, as well as his fingers, are numb, but he lights the fire.
He remembers the veteran of Salt Creek, who has warned him that no man should travel
alone in the Klondike region with a temperature of fifty degrees below zero.
As the man is trying to unlace his boots, chunks of snow fall from the branches of the spruce
tree under which he was building the campfire and extinguish it. Although lighting a fire in
the open would have been wiser, the man found it easier to throw the spruce branches directly
under the tree. But each time he pulled a twig out he shook the tree slightly until, at this point,
a higher branch tipped its load of snow, causing a small avalanche of snow that extinguished
the fire.
The man panics and prepares to light a new fire, aware that, at this altitude, he is probably
going to lose a few fingers to frostbite. He gathers twigs mixed with moss. With his fingers
numb and almost lifeless, he tries unsuccessfully to light a match. Recognizing that he can't
make fine movements, he grabs all his matches and lights them simultaneously, setting fire
to a piece of bark. However, when he tries to protect his fire from the damp moss, his new
bonfire goes out.
The man decides to kill the dog and puts his hands inside its warm entrails to restore its
circulation. He calls to the animal, but something frightening and strange in the man's voice
frightens him. The dog finally approaches, and the man grabs it in his arms. But he cannot
kill it with his numb hands: he could neither pull out his knife nor strangle the animal. He
lets it go.
The man realizes that freezing a few fingers off is now a much less worrisome prospect than
death. He panics and runs down the creek path, trying to restore circulation, with the dog at
his heels. But his resistance gives way, he finally falls and cannot get up. He struggles against
the thought of his body freezing, but it is too powerful a vision and moves him to run again.
He falls again, gets up to make one last, panicked run, and falls once more. He decides he
must face death in a more dignified way. He imagines his friends finding his body the next
day.
The man finally falls into a comfortable sleep. The dog doesn't understand why he is sitting
in the snow like that, without making a fire. As night falls, he comes closer and detects death
in the man's scent. He runs off in the direction of the camp, "where the other providers of
food and fire were to be found".

Comments,
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Bibliographic references.

Muñoz, M. (2020). A Small Collection of American Short Stories. [eBook]. Universidad

Nacional Abierta y a Distancia. https://repository.unad.edu.co/handle/10596/37292