GROUP REPORT:

Silk [Excerpt]
BY Alessandro Baricco (Italy)

A Literary Analysis Presented to the

Faculty of the Senior High School
Putlod-San Jose National High School
Putlod, Jaen Nueva Ecija

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements in the
21st Century Literature
from the Philippines and the World
for Grade 12
Academic Track - STEM/ABM Strands

First Semester
School Year 2019-2020

Submitted by:

DE GUZMAN, Alyssa S.
RELUCIO, Carmela C.
BAUTO, Aimee Noreene E.
BRAZIL, Maria Cristela P.
GONZALES, Gavereal P.
PAGULAYAN, Laiza Joy C.
ANTONINO, Carlo H.
Students

Submitted to:

Engr. Edisen F. Mamauag, LPT

Teacher II
 GROUP REPORT

I. Title

Silk [Excerpt]

II. Author

Alessandro Baricco

- Is Italy's most famous contemporary writer. Born in Turin in

1958, he studied philosophy and earned a diploma in piano at
university. After a short time working as a copywriter for an
ad agency, he started his writing career as a music and
cultural critic for the Italian press. His first novel,
Castles of Anger (1991), won Italy's Prix Medicis and the
Campiello Prize. His other novels include Ocean Sea (1993),
Silk (1996), City (1999) and Without Blood (2002). Silk, which
became an immediate best seller in
- Italy, has been translated into 16 languages, including
Japanese. Critics have commented that it is no surprise
Baricco was trained as a musicologist, given the lyrical
nature of much of his writing. Baricco has also written plays
and essays and hosted television programs on opera and
liter-ature. In 1991 he founded a training program for
writers, The Holden School. Baricco has a great interest in
publicly reading his work; he worked with the French musical
group Air in 2002 on a reading of City, which was success-ful
enough to warrant making a DVD of the collaboration, City
Reading. Last fall he gave sold-out public readings in Rome
and Turin of his adaptation of Homer's Iliad.

III. Literary Devices Used

Basing on a longer summary not just on the given excerpt,

you will notice two literary device used:

SYMBOLISM

1. "...those eyes did not have oriental shape" This may mean that
the way how the girl look at him was not normal. And it seems
that, that look is giving Herve Joncour an unusual feeling.
 2. "...she had her lips at the exact point where he had drunk".
This symbolizes that girl is expressing her feelings with Herve
Joncour without verbally discussing it.

IV. Main Characters

 Herve Joncour- A French Adventurer. He has a dangerous

mission to smuggle silkworm eggs from Japan. He is a
passive and peaceful man. He has enough money to support
himself and his wife, he spends a lot of time designing
gardens and parks for his lands.
 Hara Kei – Silkworm trader.

V. Setting/Location

 Japan – the “Land of the Rising Sun” – is an archipelago

of more than 6,800 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The main
islands are from North to South: Hokkaido, Honshu,
Shikoku, Kyushu, which make up for 97% of the land of
Japan.
 The House of Hara Kei

VI. Vocabulary

 Imperceptibly – in a way that is as slight, gradual, or

subtle as not to be perceived.
 Singsong – having a repeated rising and falling rhythm.
 Melancholy – a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with
no obvious cause.
 Irreversible – not able to be undone or altered.
 Stillness – tranquil silence; “the still of the night”
hush, silence, quite – the absence of sound; “he needed
silence in order to sleep”; “the street was quiet”
 Perceptible – especially of a slight movement or change of
state; able to seen or noticed.
 Absurdly – in an absurd was; ridiculously.
 Inexorably – in a way that is impossible to stop or
prevent.
  Nodded – lower and raise one’s head slightly and briefly,
especially in greeting, assent, or understanding, or to
give someone a signal.
 Disconcerting – causing one to feel unsettled.

VII. Summary

Herve Joncour is an adventurer who was seeking for a silk. When

Herve went to Hara Kei’s place, he saw the latter who was sitting with
a cross-legged on the floor, he doesn’t wore jewel but the only
evident of his power was a woman lying beside her.
Herve Joncour leave the room, a servant arrived and handed them two
cups of tea and the servant leave them. Hara Kei started talking with
the use of his own languages and Herve Joncour listened carefully to
him, when Hara Kei was talking, Herve Joncour was steady and his eyes
kept on Hara Kei, suddenly he accidentally lowered his gaze to the
face of the woman who was lying on the lap of Hara Kei right after he
saw the face of the woman he quickly turn his gaze to Hara Kei.
Hara Kei ask Herve Joncour to tell who he is then the latter do so,
Herve Joncour tried to explain who he was, and he did it in his own
language, speaking slowly and unsure if Hara Kei was able to
understand what he has been said, he narrated everything without
adding nor omitting some details, he only said all the truthful facts
about his identity. Hara Kei listened to him and the emotion was
invisible to his face. Right after, the room was filled by silence,
suddenly without moving at all, the girl opened her eyes, the
adventurer turn his gaze on the woman eyes, he witness that the woman
doesn’t have as Asian eyes, the latter turned his gaze somewhere as
far as he could and he try to continue his story, he only stopped when
his eyes fell on the cup of tea and he drunk it slowly. The mistress
of Hara Kei stared at him maliciously. Then the girl picked-up the cup
of tea same with the cup that Herve used, the girl’s stared and her
action was look like seducing Herve Joncour and she feel intimate
relationship towards to the adventurer and then Herve Joncour do the
same way, he also drank on the cup of tea where the girl drunk, the
adventurer was ook like that he is accepting

VIII. Quotation
“If you are willing to come back, you will have what you really
want”
- Hara Kei, Silk (1996)

This quote was stated by Hara Kei to Herve Joncour,

this line is about the girl who is laying on the lap of
 Hara Kei that has a feelings towards Herve Joncour and vice
versa. Hara Kei stated this line to Herve Joncour because
he witnessed the indirect confession of the two.

IX. Reflection/Learnings

We realized that love will always prevail even if they

are far away , even if they just seen each other for the
first time, they always have a ways to come back to their
own family or love ones. We shouldn’t choose temporary
happiness but choose happiness for eternity.

X. References

 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the

World.