I denne study guide kan du få hjælp til at analysere novellen “a strong dead man” af Daniel Alarcón, som var en del af et vejledende opgavesæt til den skriftlige eksamen i Engelsk A på HTX fra juli 2019. Udover analysehjælpen kan du finde et summary af teksten samt idéer til din fortolkning.
Eksamensspørgsmål
Write an analytical essay in which you analyze and interpret the short story “A Strong Dead Man” by Daniel Alarcón.
Word count: 800-1200 words
Use the following source:
A Strong Dead Man
In your essay, you must include references to the short story.
All sources must be documented.
Præsentation af teksten
Titel: “a strong dead man” (2005)
Forfatter: Daniel Alarcón
Genre: Short story
Daniel Alarcón (f. 1977) er en peruviansk-amerikansk forfatter, som er vokset op i Birmingham, Alabama. Hans værker er blevet udgivet i tidsskrifter som The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review og Harper's Magazine.
"a strong dead man" blev første gang udgivet i Alarcóns novellesamling War by Candlelight (2005).
Mere hjælp
Vejledning til analytical essay
Få hjælp til at skrive et analytical essay i Engelsk med Studienets trin-for-trin vejledning. Vejledningen kan både bruges til opgaver inden for fiction og non-fiction.
Uddrag
Nedenfor kan du læse et kort uddrag fra vores study guide til teksten:
Title
The title of the short story “a strong dead man” by Daniel Alarcón is both literal and symbolic. In the literal sense, the title is a reference to Rafael’s statement about the dead body he saw floating in the Hudson River when he was younger: “The body's back was rippled with muscles. Rafael thought to himself, That's a strong dead man, and the idea made him laugh, so he said it aloud. ‘That's a strong dead man.’ ” (ll. 54-55). Rafael’s words suggest that he finds the situation ironic: since the man is dead, it does not matter how strong he was.
At the age of 16, Rafael has to watch his father become very ill. Witnessing this has a strong effect on Rafael, as he seems to realize that strength – symbolized by health and youth – can be easily taken away:
Rafael watched in muted horror as a succession of strokes reduced his father ever further. Nearly dust by the end. He learned that life makes us older frantically, that time does not always pass in an even cadence, but sometimes all at once: that we can age months, years, decades - in a single day, even a single hour. (ll. 4-6)
