Author: Mark Twain.
Setting: California; The house of Jim was located among the woods and mountains.
Characters: Jim Baker, the narrator, Blue jay.
Exposition: The story begins with the narrator mentioning that animals speak between them, but that he had never seen a man who could understand the animals. Also Jim tells us that he had never seen a creature that uses as good grammar as blue jay.
Rising action: One day Jim was taking the sun with his can when all of a sudden a blue jay appeared with an acorn on his mouth, but he talked and dropped the acorn. The bird threw the acorn in a hole of the abandoned house, but he didn’t hear it fall, so he did it again and tried to see the acorn fall, but he couldn’t.
Climax: The blue jay kept filling the hole with acorns, and Jim was amazed by this, because he had never seen a bird working so hard.
Falling action: Another jay was passing by, but stopped to see what was going on with the hole. The birds were talking about how many acorns were there, and then one of them called other blue jays to examine the house all over.
Resolution: The birds rusted around the house for an hour, and they all laughed. It seems that a blue jay has a great sense of humor because they kept calling jays throughout the U.S and they could all see the point. The only bird who couldn’t, was an owl brought from Nova scotia.
New Resolution: The birds examined the house for around 2 hours, and still had no clue on how to define how many acorns were there. They all were so sad that Jim brought them all home to give them comfort and they ate nuts and fruits. Then an Owl appeared who seemed to be very old and wise, and he was the one to tell them how many acorns were inside the hole.
Conflict: In the story all the types of conflict can be identified. Man vs Self is reflected when the blue jay got mad at himself because he couldn’t see how deep was the hole, but then he kept filling it. Man vs Nature might be an option, because even though there wasn’t a storm that affected any of the character, the bird didn’t know the deepness of the hole, which can be considered as a conflict. Another one might be Man vs Society, because the jay heard not only one but many opinions of other jays. They all weren’t sure about how many acorns were inside, and even though the blue jay said around two tons, the other ones wanted to know exactly how many were there.
Theme: The theme of the story would have to be that animals have the ability to feel like humans; and also that humans can communicate with animals.
Tone: The author used a vocabulary that I personally find understandable for almost every type of audience. The words that were used, kept the whole story interesting from the beginning till the end, because it makes you feel like you are the one living the story.
Mood: I personally felt very intrigued or interested in how the birds were feeling, because they were basically humans inside of the body of an animal. But I got to admit that at the end I was confused because I didn't find the point of why they were laughing.
Voice: The author wanted to tell us that animals have feelings, just like humans; and that they have the ability of communicating among them and with humans.
Elements of humor: Throughout the story all the elements of humor were present. Some of them just appeared in specific parts and some others just made the story what it is. We have to know that the author really enjoyed to express or to have some humor in his stories, and this one specifically was intended to represent the congressmans, and show how long they can stay debating over one minimal problem that has quick fix, which is stupid.
Extended fable: In this story, all the animals present were personified. They were expressing like humans, they had feelings and did stuff that a person would do. Obviously that is not real, because sure it’s true that animals can communicate among them, but they won’t be talking in the same language that we do, so basically this story contains lot’s of unreal factors that can transform it into a fable.
By Ana Álvarez, Step 8 Yellow.
