Thursday, May 8, 2014
Homework for the story, "Katania"
Using the questions you received with your first short story (on the reverse of the sheet) or the “Guide to Literary Terms,” write an answer based on the page range given to you at class on Wednesday. You may comment on more than one example (e.g. for setting you could refer to both the physical setting and the social environment) that occurs on those pages. Remember to have one overall topic that is more general than your content so we know how you plan to answer. Write about 200 words in a single paragraph. Quote at least twice and work to integrate your quotations into your own sentences. Try to show how your page range relates to something that happens either before or after it in the story.
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Lara Vapnyar’s story, “Katania,” contains richly imagined and evocative settings. In the pages five through eight, Vapnyar brings us detailed information on the social world of the two girls. Katya is clearly concerned about Tania’s potential for bad behaviour when she invites her for the first time and that she “would throw a tantrum,” but Tania behaves well enough that Katya’s grandmother is “delighted with her.” The surprise is that Tania is sure that Katya’s family is “rich” since Tania has her own room. It also becomes clear at this point how they have lost their fathers: Tania’s defected; Katya’s died. We also read about the unravelling of the girls’ friendship that, ironically, is caused by Katya’s receiving a male doll from her uncle, one that she promptly designates the “father” doll. Impatient at the end of a long, boring summer, Katya can’t wait to show off her new possession. Tania’s response catches her by surprise as she begins chanting “cripple and retard” because of the father doll’s “bad hip.” Thus ends their childhood friendship. Vapnyar has planted the seed for the story’s slightly contrived ending where Tania’s ends up with a husband who walks as if his leg “were detached at the hip.” Contrived, yes, but for its rich use of setting, a worthwhile story to read.—218 words
In Lara Vapnyar’s story “Katania” there are several conflicts taking place. On pages one to four Vapnyar first writes about a conflict between a husband and his wife which started when he wanted to leave his family. In Katya’s hometown it “was perfectly normal” for a father to leave his family. When Kayta meets Tania for the first time at school another conflict arises when Tania’s mother gets her the wrong cup for a school event. This causes Tania to start screaming for the right one. This conflict is resolved when Tania’s mother agrees to go home and get the cup Tania wanted. Katya later has the wrong assumption about Tania’s father. This happens when the two girls are talking about which members of their family have passed away. When Katya asks her “How did your father die” This causes a conflict between them when Tania tells Katya that her father is “away on a business trip.” Finally when Katya was invited to Tania’s home for a visit she is worried it will “betray her incompetence” (Katya doesn’t have a key to her house like Tania does.) This internal conflict tells us that Katya is unsure of going to Tania’s home. The story “Katania” has many conflicts which makes it a pleasure to read.
-- 214 words
In the story "Katania" author Lara Vapnyar could talent describe the social environment
where the events took place . I imaged clearly typical twelve- entrances house and apartments
where the small protagonists live. In fact, Katya’s and Tania’s families are not poor, not rich;
they have approximately equal social status. Katya’s mother confirms this thesis figuratively
but exactly . “Look at my boots,” she said. “Do they look like the boots of a rich person to you?”
(page 6). It's funny and sad at the same time; they are all identical and live in the same
conditions - Soviet Union. Another feature of this society is huge amount of single-parent
families; this problem of Soviet society is much more serious. Reading the story we can
observe how Tania’s psyche is deformed by single-parent’s complex. She immediately began
to strain only one mention of his father or simply a boy doll. “She picked the father up gingerly,
slowly, and brought him close to her face. For a second, I was afraid that she was going to eat
him.” (page 8); this is called Fatherless .Tracing the journey of life, the author shows how
Tanya overcomes her inferiority complex: she immigrates to America, marries a wealthy man,
and creates the sterling family. In fact, Tanya had built for herself that ideal world she had
dreamed all his childhood ( including the chicken coop).
Victor
220words
"Katania," by Lara Vapnyar is a wonderful story told and described in such a way that your heart is filled with adventure. From pages one through four, I learn that setting is of much importance. The introduction is brought to us by the object the girl is in love with, and plays with all the time. Her dolls. "They lived in a red shoe box painted to look like a house." She had her family of dolls and they all had there names (labeled) this was a very organized game. But what her family of dolls lacked was "the father doll.""I didn't have a father he died when I was two." " So imagine my surprise, my joy,
when I suddenly got a father doll as a gift!” When I continue to read the descriptive being of the father doll and dolls, you also begin to learn about her actual friend “Tania.” How they became friends is interesting. It’s all because she admired her courage to scream and through a fit. These two have much in common and they share all there family secrets and what they both find interesting. Vapnyar does a good job at opening up the setting and detailing the characters. You really get a grasp for how they would be in person. You definitely want to continue reading to know what happens with their friendship.
-245 words
Lara Vapnyar’s story, “Katania,” . In the pages nine through twelve, Vapnyar brings us information on their eventual switch in fortunes. We can see the conflict between two of them after they immigrate to America. Tina was “poor” as a child but she becomes very well-to-do as an adult and she married to a man who was a cripple. Vapnyar was divorced and her life seems not wealthy. They found each other on facebook and reunite many years later. Katya finds that Tania has become materialistic and voraciously bourgeois; indeed, she has built a life a world around her and strikingly similar to Katania .The girls' mutual fatherlessness makes them particularly susceptible to fantasy. The difference is that, perhaps, Tania never grows up. Her obsession with her still living father drives her to create the ideal life for herself, one which completely bores Katya, who is arguably the less "successful”, but more human of the two, and the more interesting. I like the ending of the story because during their childhood the two girls fight over a "father" doll that has a broken leg. The man Tania marries has a bum leg, too. Words:193
Almost the whole passage of Lara Vapnyar’s story, “Katania,” colours with both the external and internal conflicts. In the pages five through eight, Vapnyar brings up the starting external conflict between Katya and Tania; when Tania says, “You’re stuck with your grandmother. You may be rich, but I have my freedom.” Katya tries to solve this problem by convincing herself that she is okay, “I didn’t have a key, but so what? I guess I didn’t care that much about freedom.” Later, the conflict becomes more and more serious, and the climax is when Tania mocks Katya about the father doll, “Cripple and retard. Cripple and retard.” Katya replies her with very sarcastic words. This conflict has never been solved. Even, it happens again at the end of the story when Katya visits the adult Tania. Actually, Vapnyar also brings up another conflict in this story (the internal conflict between Katya and herself). In one side, Katya wants to make friend with Tania, loves to play with her. She even can’t wait to show her new doll to Tania. However, in another side, Katya must struggles with Tania’s bad temper and manner. These two conflicts which fill from the beginning to the end of the story make this story becomes interesting and not boring to read.
-216 words
Katania
In the story Katania by Vapnyar, one of the characters Katya, is in conflict with her mother. The mother takes her shoebox with dolls, and puts it on the bookcase. The conflict is resolved as the mother after crying and counting days for the doll box,gives it to Katya. The dolls seems different, the father nursed his bad hip. The mother kept losing her hair. Finally the grandmother gives it to the little girl next door, whose father had gone to Far North. Katya is in friedship with Tania from childhood.Katya,s father had died, and Tanya,s father had immigrate to U.S. The two child didn,t see each other after Tania had taken his father doll and said to him"cripple and retard". Until Tania had a party for going- way to America at the end of high school. Another conflict is when Katya after divorce from his husband, thinks the pain of divorce is too great and future is too murky for her to commit to anything. The protective layer she,d grown during her marriage years had gone, and leaving her compeletely exposed. The story continues to the end as Katya after years accept the invitation of Tania. Tania has changed to a woman with hair fixed in a little bun. Katya thinks that she is Tania,s mother, but then realized that it is Tania herself. Another internal conflict is when adult Tania takes a long takes at the picture and says "I guess we,re happy". Katya says " pretty hard not to be in a house like this".Katya says, but Tania doesn,t understand her sarcasm. In the story of Katania Katya is in conflict. Some are resolved,some didn,t.
279 words
“Katania,” the story by Lara Vapnyar, is of profound and induces us to have curiosity until the end of the story. A tension between two girls, Katya and Tania, is arousing through the page 5 to 8 as Tania’s visiting to Katya. Vapnyar portrays precisely the girls’ psychological irony: jealousy and indignation, which is of a good friend and an enemy at the same time. Tania’s examination – “So you have your own room?” “And you have rugs and everything,”— is started with inspection-like questions and ended by an expression of her superiority – “You may be rich, but I have my freedom.”(basically caused by her inferiority). Like Tania, Katya has superiority herself by saying that “I found the pathos of her (Tania) words nauseating, but I was more pleased than angered.” Almost the end of summer break, they get together again at Katya’s house and has a big fighting due to Katya’s father doll. Their fatherlessness obviously affects each girl in different ways: affectionate toward boy doll for Katya and aggressive jealous toward Tania for a boy doll. “He’s a cripple. And look at that stupid smile. Is he a retard, too?” Tania said. This incident dramatically shows how the trauma – lacked father – affects the girls’ behavior. The strained setting of a social environment on these pages is enough for taking my breath away by the end of the story.
--- 229 words
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