A review of the short story, Mother’s Birthday Present
What is the title of the text and what is the text about?
Mother’s Birthday Present, a story by Carrie Seever, won a Life (magazine) short story contest in 1915. The story describes a young girl’s encounter with a con man, who cheats her out of thirty-five cents ($8.13 in 2015 dollars). The girl, Lizzie sees through the deception, challenges the con man and succeeds in getting her money back, as well as the prize (an album) that she lost her money betting on to win. Birthday gifts (past, present and future) for Lizzie’s mother are central to the story (Seever, 1915).
What is the author’s view? How do I know?
Identifying and describing an author’s view was a new exercise for me. My research …show more content…
Seever accomplishes this by:
• Actions | The use of a dialog between Lizzie and her cat, allows the reader an opportunity to listen in on the thoughts of a child.
• Word choice | Deliberate use of spelling and grammar errors, such as a child would make remind the reader of Lizzie’s age. I feel this is emphasized in the first and last paragraph of the story, where Lizzie says, “a album” instead of “an album.”
• Descriptions | The reader quickly identifies the con man as the story’s antagonist, but he is only described from a child’s perspective as, “the Stomach and …show more content…
• Confident | The story opens with Lizzie reflecting on how age effects the gifts she is able to give her mother. Lizzie is confident that she will be able to give better gifts when she is older. She specifically mentions the desire to give her mother an album in seven years.
• Gullible | Soon thereafter, Lizzie sees what looks like an opportunity to win an album. Lizzie’s enthusiastic confidence and inexperience clouds her ability to understand it’s a scam. She is caught in the moment and allows her childlike confidence (that she will win the album) to overpower her ability to reason and loses, what the reader believes is the money she planned to use to buy her mother a birthday present. Even if the chance to win was not a scam, given all of the available items, the odds that Lizzie would specifically win the album were never in her favor.
• Brave & outspoken | Once Lizzie realizes she was duped, her confidence quickly returns. Her assertiveness gives her the strength to fight back against an adult. She is fearless and rewarded for her
What is the title of the text and what is the text about?
Mother’s Birthday Present, a story by Carrie Seever, won a Life (magazine) short story contest in 1915. The story describes a young girl’s encounter with a con man, who cheats her out of thirty-five cents ($8.13 in 2015 dollars). The girl, Lizzie sees through the deception, challenges the con man and succeeds in getting her money back, as well as the prize (an album) that she lost her money betting on to win. Birthday gifts (past, present and future) for Lizzie’s mother are central to the story (Seever, 1915).
What is the author’s view? How do I know?
Identifying and describing an author’s view was a new exercise for me. My research …show more content…
Seever accomplishes this by:
• Actions | The use of a dialog between Lizzie and her cat, allows the reader an opportunity to listen in on the thoughts of a child.
• Word choice | Deliberate use of spelling and grammar errors, such as a child would make remind the reader of Lizzie’s age. I feel this is emphasized in the first and last paragraph of the story, where Lizzie says, “a album” instead of “an album.”
• Descriptions | The reader quickly identifies the con man as the story’s antagonist, but he is only described from a child’s perspective as, “the Stomach and …show more content…
• Confident | The story opens with Lizzie reflecting on how age effects the gifts she is able to give her mother. Lizzie is confident that she will be able to give better gifts when she is older. She specifically mentions the desire to give her mother an album in seven years.
• Gullible | Soon thereafter, Lizzie sees what looks like an opportunity to win an album. Lizzie’s enthusiastic confidence and inexperience clouds her ability to understand it’s a scam. She is caught in the moment and allows her childlike confidence (that she will win the album) to overpower her ability to reason and loses, what the reader believes is the money she planned to use to buy her mother a birthday present. Even if the chance to win was not a scam, given all of the available items, the odds that Lizzie would specifically win the album were never in her favor.
• Brave & outspoken | Once Lizzie realizes she was duped, her confidence quickly returns. Her assertiveness gives her the strength to fight back against an adult. She is fearless and rewarded for her