Summary
The short story "On Writing" is about a young boy who is in the first grade. He becomes sick during his first year out of kindergarten, with what seems to be a simple, harmless case of measles, nothing more than that. That is, until his throat starts to feel soar. After that, his ear began to hurt, which would quickly be followed by his other ear hurting as well. The boy's mother eventually took him to the doctor in a taxi cab. He knew the doctor they were going to see had to be a big deal, since they had to take a taxi cab just to get there. Once they got to the doctor, he was thrown onto a table and examined closely. Eventually, the frightening ear doctor came into the room with a long, sharp needle. The smell of alcohol filled the boy’s nostrils, and the doctor ordered him to lay on his side. The doctor tried pulling the “this should only hurt a bit” card, and stuck the needle deep into the boy’s ear. In fact, in the story the boy says, “He slid the needle into my ear and punctured my ear drum with it. The pain was beyond anything I have ever felt since – the only thing close was the first month of recovery after being struck by a van in the summer of 1999” (2). To put it into perspective, the pain that this first grade boy was going to was the equivalent of getting hit by a van. The boy goes through this process several more times to finally shy away the infections. By the time he is fully healed, he has missed most of the school year and was taken out of school entirely and was going to have to start fresh the next year.
How It's NonfictionNonfiction is based on true events and things that have actually happened in real life. The story "On Writing" is clearly based on events that the narrator has gone through, because of the way that he is telling the story from a past tense. If the events in the story were untrue, it would not be nonfiction.
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Three Rs of NonfictionReal Life - In the story, it talks about going to the doctor, which is an event that anyone could do in real life.
Reflection - Also in the story, it tells about the pain he experienced at the doctor's office. This applies to the reflection aspect of nonfiction because the narrator is reflecting on the pain he experienced. Research - The narrator completes the research part of the three Rs of nonfiction by the narrator recognizing that the smell of alcohol and being turned sideways on a table meant he was getting another shot in his ear. |
Connection to "Us & Them"In both the stories, "Us &Them", and "On Writing", the plot is based around a narrator telling a story from the past. The stories can relate in a couple of ways. Both stories have a young narrator that discovers new things throughout the story. Also, both of the stories main characters experience resistance against something that they are aware is going to happen.
To read "Us & Them", click the button below. |