Writing in the Second Person
Read Until Gwen by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River)
(1) Write a one-paragraph, present-tense summary of the story.
(2) What kind of person is "dad" (Bobby's father)? Bobby? Gwen?
Use details from the story to support your conclusions.
(3) Is the story in the first person--or is it in the second
person? Is it in the past tense--or is it in the present
tense? What effect does Lehane (the author) achieve with
the point of view and tense he uses?
(4) The story contains several flashbacks. Identify the
flashbacks--and, also, identify the points where Lehane
"skips ahead." Why does Lehane use flashbacks? Why does he
skip ahead?
(5) The story contains similes. Identify them.
(6) "Until Gwen" conveys a message about love and identity.
What is the message about love and identity that "Until
Gwen" conveys?
1. "Until Gwen" is about a boy, Bobby, who has just been released from prison. His father picks him up in a stolen car and has a hooker in the backseat as a reunion present for his son. Throughout the entire story, Bobby's thoughts keep going back to Gwen, a girl who makes him feel whole. Bobby knows his father has killed Gwen, but must outwit his con-man of a father to find her body.
ReplyDelete2. "Dad" is a complete con man who seems to have a sort of innocence about him that may reflect how he is not totally all there. Bobby is very reflective and has more feeling than most men of his nature. Gwen seems like a nice girl who just got roped into a bad situation.
3. The story is second person but the tense switches from present to past because of flashbacks.
4. The flashbacks Bobby has concern Gwen mostly and the subtle moments he has with her. He also has memories about his mother and the night that landed him in jail. He skips ahead when he alludes to the fact that Gwen was pregnant when she was murdered.
5. The similes in "Until Gwen" compare certain people of West Virginia to diamonds, meaning that a lot of the people there are no good but then others have the potential, including Gwen.
6. Bobby feels completely lke himself when he is with Gwen and is lost without her. Before and after Gwen, he must "search" for himself again.
1) In "Until Gwen," Bobby has just been released from prison. He is trying to decipher the events that led to his shooting and imprisonment, but he does not remember clearly. Also, he is trying to recover memories from his past of his mother who passed away and his girlfriend, Gwen, who was killed by his father. At the end of the story, Bobby is forcing his father to dig up Gwen's body and Bobby hits him over the head with a shovel numerous times.
ReplyDelete2) Dad is definitely not a good person. He comes to pick up Bobby in a stolen car. He has drugs and has killed numerous people including George and Gwen. Also, he scams people into paying him for services he does not provide.
Bobby used to assist his father in the scams but since he has been in prison he has done a lot of thinking and seems to want to change his ways.
Gwen was Bobby's girlfriend who also helped Bobby with his scams. However, she helped Bobby to better understand himself.
3) Technically, the story is in the second person, but because the reader can glimpse into Bobby's mind, it feels like a first person piece. The tense changes depending on whether the part of the story is happening in the present or a flashback. Lehane uses these strategies to allow the reader to understand Bobby on a more personal level and identify with him.
4) Lehane flashes back when Bobby is trying to remember what happened when he got shot, the first night he met Gwen, and when he is trying to remember his mother. Lehane flashes back in order to show important events that occurred in Bobby's life before the time of the story.
5) Lehane uses similes to compare something in the characters' lives to something the reader can relate to.
6) "Until Gwen" conveys the fact that falling in love can help one to "find" themselves and to finally discover who they really are. Falling in love can transform one's personality.
(1) In "Until Gwen," a young man, Bobby, is released from prison, having been locked up for four years. His father picks him up, along with a hooker named Mandy. The three of them spend the night in a hotel, and the next morning, Bobby and his father go looking for something. The nature of their search is revealed through flashbacks: before being caught, Bobby and his girlfriend, Gwen, helped Bobby's father make money by scamming, cheating, and stealing. On their last venture, Bobby, Gwen, and others were involved in a scheme to steal a large diamond. When this results in the death of an old woman, they flee and Bobby is shot and caught. Now, Bobby’s father wants to know where Bobby has stashed the diamond. The two of them go to the fairground where the diamond has apparently been buried. Bobby confronts his father, knowing he has killed Gwen to prevent her from taking the diamond for herself. Bobby forces his father to dig up Gwen’s remains. Upon seeing Gwen, Bobby examines her stomach and realizes that she was pregnant when she was killed. Bobby realizes his father raped Gwen, and kills his father with a shovel.
ReplyDelete(2) Bobby’s father is a greedy, selfish man who puts money and his own interests before that of other people. He has no fatherly affection for his son, and sees his as a pawn in order to attain his own goals. He does not have any sense of morality, as seen by his ruthless scamming and cheating of other people in order to make money. Bobby, too, is involved in this business of scamming and has been badly influenced by his father. However, he has maintained the ability to love. He finds solace in Gwen, who accepts him and loves him as his father never has. Gwen is forgiving and looks past Bobby’s flaws.
(3) The story is written in second person, present tense. This gives the story an immediacy that draws the reader personally into the story, making them feel that they themselves are in the story at the present moment. The reader is not removed from the action: they are the character, and everything that happens to the character happens to the reader as well.
(4) Lehane first uses flashback when describing the shot that hit Bobby in the head. It is a very short flashback, and adds a vivid scene that intrigues the reader and makes them keep reading. The second flashback is longer and explains the events leading up to the shot more fully. We learn about the diamond scheme and why Bobby was sent to prison. These flashbacks help to piece the story together a little bit at a time, making everything come together slowly.
(5) Similes:
“Your father winks at you in the rearview, like he’s driving the two of you to the prom.”
“She was tuned to you like a radio tower…”
“…all those siren lights washing across the back window like Fourth of July ice cream.”
(6) “Until Gwen” conveys that the act of loving another person helps us to love, identify, and accept ourselves. Until Gwen, Bobby was undefined by society’s standards: he did not know where he was born, he had no birth certificate, no Social Security number, no passport, and had never held a job. With Gwen, however, these things became unimportant. To Gwen, Bobby was defined by the fact that he didn’t “need anyone to tell [him]” who he was. This, in Gwen’s eyes, made Bobby “beautiful.”
1. This story is about a boy who has to navigate around his criminal father in order to find the body of Gwen. He has just been released from prison and is picked up in a stolen car which really fits the character of his father and sets the scene for the story.
ReplyDelete2.Bobby is very smart but doesn't always use his brain for the right things. His father is very casual about everything even though what he are crimes. It is hard to know the character of Gwen well but it seems like she was a nice person who got caught up in something less nice.
3. This story is in the second person, present tense. The use of the second person makes the reader feel more like the character because the author is telling you how to feel. It adds a eerie tone to the story.
4. Flashbacks are an effective way of explaining something happening in the present which connects to something that happened before the story. It gives the author a chance to explain the character of Gwen better which is very important to the character Bobby. The author also "skips ahead" to explains how a present action can effect something in the future.
5. The author uses simile to explain the characters on another level. They are compared to something that the reader can more easily relate to.
6. This story conveys that sometimes something needs to be finished completey in order to accept what has happened. Bobby has to find some closure with Gwen and find himself even though he has lost someone important to him. He is unable to leave things unfinished or let his father get away with what happened.
1. "Until Gwen" is about a boy named bobby who was picked up by his father from jail in a stolen car with a hooker named Mandy and a lot of coke. Mandy is killed by the dad and bobby keeps having flashbacks of Gwenn and his pre jail experience. He wants to remember that night because he hid something that he stole for his father and cant figure out where it is. He was shot in the head twice.
ReplyDelete2. Dad is perverted conman who kills and commits crimes cause he like it. Bobby is a thoughtful convict who seems to really want his fathers approve and that may be drive for him to commit crimes. Gwenn is a normal girl who got dragged into some stupid stuff. da da da...
3. Ms. Gamzon......you know this, ma'am. It is in second person and it goes back and forth between present and past. The author's tools makes the peice more compelled to read.
4.He thinks about gwenn and the night he went to jail. He thinks about his mother. And he skips ahead when he thinks about how gwenn was pregnant when she was murdered.
5. He compares West virginia to diamonds. Thats all i got.
6. Bobby loves gwenn because he started to know himself after knowing gwenn. Love is his identity.
Jahmal and Miller!!!
By ALicia Green
ReplyDelete(1)Until Gwen is the point of view of Bobby's life, in his shoes. Bobby gets out of jail, and his father picks him up. Bobby remembers his time with his girlfriend Gwen, and Bobby knew that his father could not be trusted.
(2)The Dad seems to be careless. He doesn't really care about who he hurts and what he does. He is a con-artist and a killer.
Bobby seems like a misunderstood kid. He lives in a life, that is surrounded by his father, were all bobby lives through death and robberys.
Gwen is Bobby's girlfriend. She helped Bobby see that he was perfect and that e didnt have to stress about who he was. She and Bobby seemed to be in love and soulmates.
(3)The story is in Second person. the story is basicailly in the present time after he gets out of Jail but certain parts of the story Bobby has flash backs of events that happened before he wa arrested and sent to jail.
(4)The auther used the Flashbacks to show Bobby's thoughts of Gwen.How Bobby thought about Gwen, their times and moments together. Lehane could have used the flashbacks to give the readers a understanding of Gwen and what and how she really ment to Bobby before the ending.He skips ahead because thats the way to get the reader to put the two parts of the story together. the story starts in the middle were he gets out of jail, so Lehane uses the flasback and the present tense to give the details of the whole story in a short term.
(5)I didnt really identify the simily in the story. An idea could be the relationship the Bobby had with Gwen and how different it was from the relationship it was with him and his father.
(6)In Until Gwen, the messeage about love and identity is that you really dont need anyone to explain who you are, that your personility inside tells who you are as a person. The Love was part of the message because before he was with Gwen he had alot of unanswered questions about who we was and were he truely came from, and after Gwen she showed him that it doesn't matter about were he came from to describe who he is.
1. Bobby just got out of jail. His father picks him up with “welcome home” presents; a hooker and some alcohol. Throughout the story he is trying to identify his existence through attempting to figure out what happened to his love, Gwen after his two years in prison. He has many flashbacks and tries to figure out what happened that night that he was arrested through them. At the end, Bobby figures out his father murdered her and buried her in the fairgrounds. He makes him dig her out with his bare hands and buries him in there with her.
ReplyDelete2. “Dad” is a deceiving and scamming person with evil intentions. Bobby seems to have good intentions but has just been brought into the wrong situations. He is protective and caring, even to people he is bitter towards, everyone except his father. Gwen seems to be basically the same, but is more loving and has more of an innocent complex.
3. This story is in the second person and is written in present tense. The effect that this perspective gives is a creepy mood and a haunting feel.
4. The flashbacks are normally identified by a double line-break and are him thinking about the night that he was arrested and specific thoughts about Gwen and his mother. These flashbacks are used to essentially feed the story and help Bobby keep going and find out more about himself.
6. The message that “Until Gwen” is conveying is that love, even through the oddest of situations, will prevail and can force one into dramatic situations. It also communicates the idea that identity is not the easiest thing to accept and it can take a lot to get to this self-realization.
1. The story begins with Bobby being picked up from prison with some cocaine and a hooker. They then begins a journey initiated by Bobby's father in which they search for the diamond they conned from an old man a long time ago, before Bobby was sent to prison. We discover that Bobby was shot in the head twice before he went to prison, and that his girlfriend Gwen helped them in the con. Bobby then finds out that his father has killed Gwen in attempts to find the diamond. Bobby kills his father and shows him that the diamond was in Gwen's stomach.
ReplyDelete2. Bobby's father is an extremely manipulative man who cares nothing for anyone besides himself. Bobby is a man who doesn't really know who he is or what he is doing with his life. He feels as though his life with Gwen was leading him towards his identity. Gwen is a woman who Bobby idealizes, but who helped him realize his full potential, even in death.
3. The story is in the second person present tense.The second person aspect of the story makes the story eerie, as if the reader is embodying the identity of Bobby. the present tense increases the urgency of every situation.
4. There are a lot of flashbacks, which help extend the exposition. Bobby goes back to when he was first shot in the head, and his experiences with Gwen and his last con with the man with the diamond. This helps us find out more about the characters involved and the reasons that Bobby and his father are the people that they are.
5. Simile is used in a manner that identifys the characters as something that is more accessible to the reader and enables the reader to more clearly visualize the story.
6. Gwen allows Bobby to find his identity. Their love together helps Bobby to slowly begin to formulate who he is, without the poisonous influence of his father, because he has never really know who he is. Love and identity together culminate to help Bobby in his lifetime.
1) It’s about this boy named bobby who feels like he is full or whole when he is around his father’s hooker. Bobby is first introduced to the hooker when his father picks him up in from jail, in a stolen car, and the hooker is in the back seat. Bobby’s father has killed the hooker and Bobby has to move around his father and out smart him in order to find her body.
ReplyDelete2) The Dad is a convict, scary, troubled, con man type of person. But he isn’t completely scary because there is something about him that passes him off as kind of “a good person”. Bobby is not like his father. He cares and is a really nice person. He can feel and is not like most guys. Gwen is a really nice person even though she is a hooker. She seems innocent and like she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and with the wrong person, considering he killed her.
3) Well the story goes back and forth from the past to the present so it is both past and present tense. It is in second person.
4) Bobby has a lot of flashback about Gwen and the small time he had with her. He also flashes back to his mother and when he got sent to jail, that one night. In the present he thinks mostly of the fact that Gwen was killed, and she was pregnant, when she was killed.
5) The similes compare people from the West Virginia to Diamonds because the people are not of use but can have value.
6) When Gwen and Bobby are with each other Bobby feels together and like he is free. He feels like himself. With out her he is kind of just hanging there alone.
Amane = Meme
ReplyDelete1. Quite simply Bobby went to jail for four years. His father, who is an accomplished con-man, picks him up from the prison and gives him a whore. His father is also a cerial-killer who killed his son's girlfriend Gwen and a man by the name of George.
ReplyDelete2. Dad is completely crazy! He is a cerial-killer and doesn't even feel for his son. He thinks that everything is a joke and that he can take over entire situations himself. On the contrary Bobby is far froma cerial-killer. His personality is more compassionate and caring than his father's. He doesn't have the heart to kill his son's girlfriend or an innocent guy just to protect himself.
3.2nd person present tense. This helps the reader to effectively understand the situation and all of it's elements. I think this works better than past tense may have.
4. The author uses flashbacks in order for the reader to have a clear background of the story. You can't just appear in a story without a background. This helps the development of Until Gwen.
1) "Until Gwen" is the story of Bobby as he searches for his place in life. He searches for this sense of placement before and after he meets Gwen, the one person he surely loves. Bobby's father lives as a con man, "a professional thief," who raises Bobby with no social security number or identity tangible to society. He can only have an idea as to where his birthplace is. Bobby and his father have a difficult relationship, though they talk calmly throughout the story. While riding with his father on year, Bobby meets Gwen. In a failed attempt to steal a diamond in West Virginia, Bobby is charged with murdering an old woman. He is arrested and imprisoned for four years. His father and are not arrested. Bobby's father later kills Gwen, which leaves Bobby lost again. Bobby feels simply significant with Gwen in his life; until Gwen, he was unsure of who he was; after Gwen, he was just an unsure. This anger moves Bobby to kill his father, burying him in the same grave that his father buried Gwen. He has no picture of Gwen to live on with.
ReplyDelete2) Bobby's father is a man whose only interest is getting out of his own way. He has no interest, or possibility, or settling down, so he goes about finding the money and means to keep going. He does not seem to understand others' love and desires, which leads him to kill Gwen, Mandy, and hinder Bobby from American "life" even as his father. While Bobby's father understands this as his place in life, Bobby does not see it has his, but does not come up with an alternative. His only hope is (was) Gwen, whom he loses. There is no telling of what happens to Gwen following the death of his father. Gwen is a person who comes into Bobby's life and accepts it. She goes with Bobby, and, with more innocence than not, is killed.
3) The story, (if you don't really mean "or") is written in both. The "you"s and "you're"s written between certain page breaks refer to Bobby, who narrates between the other page breaks. It is written in the past tense when Bobby narrates (looking back on his life, or lack of it) and in present tense when referring to "you." This allows the reader to look at Bobby's life from outside and inside perspectives, feeling the emotional trauma in the first person and plot details in the active, second-person-present perspective, as a kind of flashback.
4) It seems that the flashbacks are in present tense, and the actual "present," (or flash-forward, perhaps) is written in past tense. Therefore, the opening scene is a flashback whereas the closing scene is a flash-forward. This adds to the plot and emotional storyline
5) One that stuck was, “Your father winks at you in the rearview, like he’s driving the two of you to the prom." This is interesting now, looking back on why this simile was used, because it almost seems uncharacteristic of Bobby's father's character. It does, nevertheless, present some of his character early on in the story in a way to which the reader can relate.
6) "Until Gwen" suggests that love helps one find their identity. It gives one a place and purpose, which is why many artists (I know of one in particular, wink-wink, who named these two ideas) are almost forced to use the two in conjunction. Bobby struggles to find his identity until he finds his love, but he loses it again when he loses that love. Both, perhaps, are hard to come by.
1. This story is about Bobby who has just been picked up from prison after four years. The whole thing is based around a the conflict of the diamond. Bobby finds out that his father killed Gwen and is angry with him. He then proceeds to kill his father and find the diamond in Gwen's stomach.
ReplyDelete2. Dad may be somewhat crazy but he is overall a bad guy. He is a convict. Bobby seems like the black sheep he is just so different from his father. He feels lost and unloved guy who is struggling to find happiness and himself. Gwen is the one who helps Bobby begin to realize his true potential and have a true feeling of hope.For me Ifelt Gwen seemed in a way like a motherly figure to Bobby. She loved him for what he was and was not. She seemed like a nice women who got caught up in a whole lot of unfortunate events.
3.This story is in second person present tense. This gives an interesting effect on the reader. It makes the story creepy because you are Bobby and you are the one going through all of these events as if you did them.
4. Bobby has many flashbacks in this story mostly about Gwen. But these flashbacks really seem to bring the story together and help the reader learn a lot about the characters and their pasts.
5. Simile in this story is used to compare the characters to something the reader can easily understand. For example people from west virginia are compared to diamonds using a simile.
6.The message about love and identity that "Until
Gwen" conveys would be that love can help someone find themselves because Bobby's love for Gwen helps him find his true identity. Once she dies he finds himself lost again.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete5) Basically all of the similes inside of "Until Gwen," are used to dehumanize the characters. Similes such as "something he keeps within himself like a story he heard once," symbolize the unrealistic aspects of Bobby's father.
ReplyDelete6)The message that "Until Gwen," conveys is that Bobby was virtually no particular person at all until he me Gwen. She dissolved all of the cares and concerns that he had about his identity and the way that he virtually came to be. Before Gwen he was nobody and after her, he loses that form of identity that he once had.
James B
ReplyDelete1. The story is about a young man named Bobby who gets picked up from jail. He meets a hooker named Mandy and has intercourse with her, but doesn't enjoy it. He and his father go to the house of Gwen, Bobby's best and most meaningful friend. He comes to the realization that she's not around anymore and that before he met Gwen, he had no idea who he was. At the end, he beats up his father to death and buries him on top of Gwen.
2. Bobby's father is the guardian who raised Bobby until he was in prison. Other that that, he is also a seller of Airport security jobs. Bobby is a sad and confused young man, because his best friend is gone, he's out in the world again, and doesn't know what to make of the rest of his life. Gwen is like a symbol of happiness for Bobby. She helps define him, as shown in the flashbacks and tells him that being who is he is is what defines him as a person.
3. Dennis Lehane uses second person point of view in the form of present tense. The effect of this is that it makes the reader feel as though they're the main character and that all the events that take place in the story are happening to them at the present moment.
4. Lehane flashes back to when Bobby was 17 and working out in the fields. This was the first day he met Gwen. The author then skips ahead to when George is armed with a gun and ends up shooting his own mom. He flashes back to give the reader a better understanding of Bobby's situation and skips ahead to tell what happened with Gwen.
5. Some of the similes the author uses are "Your father winks at you, likes he's driving the two of you to the prom." "She was turned to you like a radio tower."
6.The message is that you can't truly love someone unless you accept who they are and appreciate it. You can't be defined by legal information or by others. You can only be defined by yourself and who you are as a person.