What I'd Recommend

Of all the works of fiction that we have covered, the one I would probably recommend to a friend is “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe. Actually I already have recommended it to someone. Anyway, there are several reasons why I recommend it. One of those is the way in which Poe gives insights into a man that is deranged through first person narrative. This helps to make the story very gripping, and suspenseful. The fact that we have an insight into this man’s thoughts gives the story an amazing intensity, for all of its five pages. Also an aspect of point of view is the brief use of the second person, which serves to draw in the reader and involve them in it. The foreshadowing throughout the story is subtle at times, and can be seen as both macabre and humorous. For example, when the narrator offers Fortunato a bottle of De Grâve wine, the name is ironically similar to the word grave. We may think it funny, or we may think of it as a death sentence. Another bit of irony is Fortunato’s name which means lucky, when he is just the opposite. All this, to state a few reasons, is much of why I would recommend this story to a friend.

The Mysterious Bartleby

Bartleby’s facebook page is singularly dull and yet perplexingly intriguing. He was originally told to create one by a coworker and said, “I’d prefer not to.” That coworker though went behind his back a created it for him and tried to force to use it normally. He twisted it to his own mysterious ways though. He refuses any friend requests, even the person who made it for him. In fact the only time anyone ever sees his facebook page is when they peek over shoulder at work. What they have seen perplexes them to no end. There is no profile picture, but instead a picture of a wall. In his profile he has typed, ‘I would prefer not to tell you about myself,” and all the pictures he has are of the same wall that his profile picture is. In fact, they are all shot from exactly the same angle, yet due to lighting, it is clear that they are all different photos. On his wall, he has written, “I’d prefer not to have this facebook page. Can’t you see why?” Other than that, there is really little activity on his page. His coworkers will finds him logged onto facebook simply staring at all the wall shots he has taken.

The reason I have chosen to do Bartleby in this manner is that he is extremely weird. I can simply picture him writing those things and taking pictures of the same wall over and over again, then just staring at them. I had to include the background because I simply couldn’t imagine him taking the trouble of making the page himself. Yet he goes through some trouble not to interact, even with the opportunity, as with his facebook page.