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Hanjie Zhang Essay 2 First Draft

The document summarizes and analyzes the short story "The Birthday Cake" by Daniel Lyons. It discusses how the author uses dialogue to reveal hidden meanings, emotions, and characteristics of the characters. The dialogue shows the contradiction between two women regarding a birthday cake. It also demonstrates the depths of suffering, devotion, and loneliness of the old woman who buys a cake every year. The dialogue reveals clues about the characters, such as one character being an immigrant and disliking Spanish people. It traces the emotional changes of a young Spanish woman through her dialogue. The dialogue also presents characters as very firm in their positions through their repetitive responses. Overall, the document analyzes how the use of dialogue provides insights and makes

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191 views5 pages

Hanjie Zhang Essay 2 First Draft

The document summarizes and analyzes the short story "The Birthday Cake" by Daniel Lyons. It discusses how the author uses dialogue to reveal hidden meanings, emotions, and characteristics of the characters. The dialogue shows the contradiction between two women regarding a birthday cake. It also demonstrates the depths of suffering, devotion, and loneliness of the old woman who buys a cake every year. The dialogue reveals clues about the characters, such as one character being an immigrant and disliking Spanish people. It traces the emotional changes of a young Spanish woman through her dialogue. The dialogue also presents characters as very firm in their positions through their repetitive responses. Overall, the document analyzes how the use of dialogue provides insights and makes

Uploaded by

HanjieZhang
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Hanjie1

Hanjie Zhang
Professor Deborah Bennett
ESL 3
11 March 2015
The Art Of Using Dialog In Essay
In The Birthday Cake the author Lyons describe the contradiction between two
women by using a lot of dialog. This story was about a birthday where an old woman
went to buy a birthday cake for Nico which she do it every year, and so the old
woman insists on having it despite the little girl not being there to enjoy it. This
emotional demonstrates the depths of her suffering, devotion and loneliness.The
author use dialog to present hidden things, emotions and character.
There are a lot of hidden things that we can guess in the essay, the author present
some

clues

by

using

these

dialog.

For

example,buona

sera,

Signora

Ronsavelli,Lyons 19we can guess the story was about some immigrate even we
dont know where are they from. Miss Mendez needs a cake, and I have none left,
except yours.I told her that you were my best customer, and of course wed have to
wait and ask you. this dialog us this is the main contradiction of the story.
Also, there are some dialog present the emotion of the different characters.
Like Every week I buy my cake. For how many years? And now this muli comes in
and you just give it away?Lyons 53so we know now this old woman was very
angry because she use a bad word muli which means mulo to call the young woman
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who need the cake for her 7 years old daughter.No, Not Lucy. She tapped her chest
with her finger. Lucia.Lucy, please, he said.No Please, Lucy. No parlare
Inglese. Italiano. Lyons 58 from here we can guess this Italian woman has a
strong motion from her country at this moment.I know what they wouldnt do. They
wouldnt forget who their people were. They wouldnt start speaking Spanish for the
mulis. Lyons 73 its obvious that this Italian woman dont like Spanish people
and she was kind of hate the people from bake shop start speaking Spanish.
There is a change about the young spanish womans motion, we can easily get it
from several dialog,My little girl, Maria said. Today is her birthday.Shes seven
years old today. Lyons 38 we can see now this young woman is full of
longing.All the other bakeries are closed, Maria said. Its my little girls
birthday.she was trying to explain her situation Lyons 50 Lucia, think of the
poor little girl, he said. Its her birthday. Lyons 66 the man from bake shop
trying to help that young woman Its my daughters birthday, she said. How will
she forgive me? Dont you have children? Lyons 87after saw Lucias resolute
she still didnt give up but a little worry You witch! she screamed. Puta!
Whore!Lyons 110from here we can see a desperate woman who lost her mind
and said a lot of bad words. So we can understand the emotion changes by the dialog
very easily.
Some dialog also present the character of the roles character.Yes, Lyons
41 Yes. Lyons 45 No, Not Lucy. Lyons 58 No Please, Lucy. No
parlare Inglese. Italiano.Lyons 60) these two yes and two no describe a very

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firm woman who never change her mind.
The using of dialog make readers understand the story and roles easily and it
can present a very direct view, I can feel every roles in the story and how their state
are and how their emotion changes.This is a very useful technique and worth to learn
and use it in our essay.

Works Cited Page

Daniel Lyons. The Birthday Cake.A World of Fiction Copyright 2014 by


Pearson Education,Inc.

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