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Birthday: Fiction and Ice Cream

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Birthday: Fiction and Ice Cream
Birthday

Already in the title we know the occasion. The story starts with an introduction of the protagonist and the location. We are at a restaurant where Clara, the protagonist, is hosting a birthday party. We are now familiar with the settings. As the story continues a conflict is rising, coffee or ice cream? The exposition consists mainly of a description of the settings and the stunning things with ice cream and not that big of a descriptions of Clara. I believe the reason for that is, that this text really is focusing on the importance of the weight situation; everything in moderation, as I believe is the message in this story and not a strong character in development, but I will get to that later on in my essay. Even though I think that the story suits the plot diagram in a certain way, because the story contains a rising action which entailing the climax. However the denouement and resolution is planted in our afterthoughts and not in the story. The story contains an omniscient narrator, which speaks through thoughts of both Clara and the waiter, he even know the fact that the waiter wishes to be cool. The narrator is not participating and remains objective through the story. The author has chosen a very vivid language in his story. It fits the story well because it gives the reader a better description of Clara’s beauty and it sets the ice cream as a magnificent weakness for Clara, furthermore it describes the flirt between the waiter and Clara. We see that at line 21 “Her Beauty is warm, not cold. She is a tantalizing as the geographic at Tahiti”. Clara gets described as a girl at her Zenith, and the guests, who by the way can’t get their attention away from Clara at any time at the birthday, can’t imagine her fade away from this perfection. Which explains their frustration for Clara’s rising interest for ice cream. As Clara is getting closer to eat the ice cream, they come with suggestions how to stay thin. Julie says that she just should puke it all up again and her colleague Tanya is convinced that pills would be the solution. When Clara was 14 she was fat as a whale, and all the credits, for her being thin again, goes to Elis, her personal trainer. Back then Clara were trying to get into modeling, unfortunately she was to fat. With help from Elise, she lost weight and got into modeling. One way around Clara own Elise a lot, almost everything, the other way around Clara is the diamond in Elise’s crown in her carrier as a personal trainer. Moreover all these guests are focusing so much on Clara and her weight builds up a pressure and the fact that they in addition are coming with solutions to a weight problem that doesn’t even exist yet, have to be really disturbing for Clara and I’m absolutely sure that the author with this pressure referees to a pressure existing for young women in the real world. I think the author has put the waiter in the story to cut through his message. As mentioned in the quote earlier, the waiter clearly has a crush on Clara and he is not just fallen for her perfection “Her beauty is warm, not cold”. The author emphasizes his message when the waiter at line 41 says “The waiter’s lips move too, encouraging her as a mother encouraging her baby”, yes, it’s important to stay healthy, it’s a god thing to look beautiful and have a nice looking body, but

everything in moderation. Nobody should be attracting attention when ordering an ice cream on her or his birthday! Trough the story there are certain set-ups to a change in Clara’s life, for instance the fact that her everyday-life contains coffee, the exact opposite of ice cream, and she wants to have ice cream through the whole story and at line 25 “And all for Clara, whose fame is surely at its height, because there are no more peaks left for here to climb” and in addition it is her birthday, a year has gone, many people look back at their birthday and reflects, maybe you should change your life so it would fit your age? If I should create an extracting ending, I would say let us get Clara and the waiter married! I would consider the ending as a happy ending, because she breaks through the pressure and the created standard, and starts a life where there is space for eating ice cream and live healthy, and where she does not have to live her life like others think she should.

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