Transcript The Shining Houses

The Shining Houses
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3rd person narration (limited point of view)
Style initially mirrors the nature of
storytelling over memories
Commentary on society today
Leaves readers to question their values and
perspectives
The Shining Houses - Characterization
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Mrs. Fullerton – friendly
Unlike Mary’s other neighbours who were
still sorting out life and deciding what to
take seriously. Pg64. “Mrs. Fullerton had no
doubts or questions of this kind.” – Wise
Adaptability and intuitiveness evident when
describing Mr. Fullerton’s departure from her
life. “He’s no more dead than I.” stated
calm.
Optimistic – pg. 65 After discussing her
husbands departure she said, “I don’t mind
changes either, that helps out my egg
business.”
The Shining House - Diction
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Mrs. Fullerton’s property – described with words
such as, fixed and impregnable. Pg. 66
Mrs. Fullerton physical appearance – mouth painted,
a spidery and ferocious line of red. Pg. 64
Her age and lack of education (grammar)– pg. 64
She said about Mr. Fullerton, “May of gone up
North..But he’s not dead. I would of felt it.”
Dialogue – discloses character traits and conveys
mood.
Irony- pg. 70 Mary searches for the right words in
the face of her friends uttering words such as,
shack, eyesore, filth, property, value.
TSH –
Metaphors/Simile/Personification
Simile / Metaphor - Mrs. Fullerton – pg. 64
“Her eyes showed it, black as plums with a soft
inanimate sheen; things sank into them and they
never changed.
Pg. Metaphor 66 “The new, white and shining houses,
set side by side in long rows in the wound of the
earth.”
Pg. Personification 67 “”The face of each house –
those ingenuously similar houses that looked calmly
out at each other, all the way down the street.”
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The Shining Houses - Setting
Mrs. Fullerton’s pg. 66 “house/surroundings
self-sufficient with a complicated and unalterable
layout of vegetables…or a goat.” and “no open
or straightforward plan, no order that an
outsider could understand.”
VS
 Modern Subdivision Pg. 66 Green Garden
subdivision
- earth was raw, wounds of earth, unimaginable
upheavals of earth – pg. 67 those ingenuously
similar houses that looked calmly out at each
other, all the way down the street.
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TSH - Setting
Time change to evening.
Pg. 72
“outside it was quite dark, the white houses
were growing dim, the clouds breaking and
breaking, and smoke blowing from Mrs.
Fullerton’s chimney. The pattern of Garden
Place, so assertive in the daytime, seemed
to shrink at night in the raw black
mountainside.”
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The Shining Houses- Alliteration
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Pg. 64 “Broad, blithe, back of Mr.
Fullerton”
TSH - Theme
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Self-Interest VS altruism (is selfless concern for the
welfare of others)
People who might normally behave altruistically
(idealistically) or practice social tolerance, are often
blinded to the needs of others by their own selfinterest or materialism.
Power of ‘the mob’
- Holding onto one’s personal attitudes and beliefs can
seem ultimately impossible when confronted with
the cynical or materialistic mentality of a group of
one’s peers acting in concert as ‘a mob’.
o
TSH - Imagery
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Re: The natural devastation due to
development. Pg. 64 “the bulldozers had
come in to clear away the brush and the
second-growth and great trees of the
mountain forest; in a little while the
houses were going up among the
boulders, the huge torn stumps, the
unimaginable upheavals of that earth.
The houses were frail at first, skeletons of
new wood standing up in the dusk of the
cold spring days.pg. 66-67
TSH - Foreshadowing
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Pg 65. With regards to the fellow who had
been talking and eating cherries with Mr.
Fullerton…Mrs. Fullerton stated, “Mr.
Fullerton went and talked to him, eating my
cherries I intended for a pie, but that man
would talk to anybody, tramp Jehovah’s
Witness, anybody – that didn’t need to
mean anything.” ironically it did.
TSH - Capitulation
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Pg. 72 Mary’s last word is a
capitulation (surrender / give up).
“Yes,” said Mary.
This is Mary’s response to Carl who
concludes that Mrs. Fullerton must
allow her home be torn down and
relocate for the good of the
community.
TSH – Atmosphere / Mood
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Contrast between Mrs. Fullerton’s style of run down
home amongst the new houses of Mimosa and
Marigold and Heather drive. pg. 68 “dark. Enclosed,
expressing something like savagery in their disorder
and the steep, unmatched angles of roofs and leantos; not possible on these streets, but there.”
pg. 68 Mary said of the Edith’s house “The house
seemed too hot.”
Pg. 71 “The spirit of anger rose against them.”
TSH - Pathos
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Pg. 65 “Husbands maybe come and go, but
a place you’re lived fifty years is something
else. I always had the idea he might of
suffered a loss of memory and it might
come back . That has happened.”
Pg. 66 “Mrs. Fullerton said. “Come and
pick your own and they’re fifty cents a box.
I can’t risk my old bones up a ladder no
more.”
TSH
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Discussion topics
Do you agree with the motivation of the
“people who win” in this story?
What underlying beliefs and values are
revealed in their words and behavior?
Do you agree with Mary that “they are good
people”?
To what extent does Alice Munro offer a fair
and balanced portrait of these characters?