Ni’matul Azizah (10320121)
C Class
Analyze of “The Standard of Living” by Dorothy
Parker
Summary
This story tells about two girls who are born to be
friends. Two girls are Annabel and Midge. They live in the same milieu and like
to eat the same kind of foods. Both of them live with their family and they
have the same hope. Had any one of them changed the way of her living she would
have became different in manner. Once Annabel had invented and evolved a new
game Midge became not Annabel in manner, behavior, and hope. Annabel played new
game, she asked a question. “What you would do if you had a million dollars?” Annabel
and Midge asked this question to Sylvia. Sylvia is a girl working in the same
office.
Sylvia answered the question
that she wants to hire somebody to shoot Mrs. Gary Cooper. The two girls
laughed at her. They like to use these million dollars for good purposes. When
Midge asked Annabel the same question Annabel answered that she would like to
buy a silver- fox coat. Midge did not agree with her answer. Because of that
they have no dreams, no money, and no change in the standard of living. It makes Annabel getting angry with her. But, view minutes
later, Midge asks Annabel to forgive her. They are going to a shop and looking
for a pearl. They cancel their aim to buy a pearl, because the price is too
expensive. Midge said to the Annabel let go girl, and we start to dream again.
1.
Character
Characters of the story are major
and minor character.
Annabel
and Midge are major character because Annabel and Midge always appear in the beginning until the end
of the story. Sylvia is a minor character,
because she rather appears in the story, for example: Sylvia rather appear when
Annabel asked the question to her.
2. Setting
There
are many kind settings of the story
Settings of place, time and condition:
·
Shop window: Together they went over to the shop window and stood pressed
against it. (setting of place) “I think that’s a kind of a good idea. And it
would make sense, too. Because, you can use pearls with anything.” (setting of
condition) They were in a good mood.
·
Store: “Why, a store
like this wouldn’t even be open this afternoon,”
Midge said. (setting of place) Afternoon (setting of time)
·
Tea
room (setting of place): Annabel and Midge came out of the tea room with the
arrogant slow gait of the leisured at Saturday afternoon (setting of
time), they were happy (setting of condition).
·
Home
(setting of time): each girl lived at home with her family and paid half her
salary to its support. They lunched together every noon (time); together
they set out for home at the end of the day’s work.
·
Office
(setting of time): Annabel and Midge did, and completely, all that young office
workers are besought not to do.
·
Hot
wind (No setting of condition): as they walked across to Fifth Avenue with
their skirts swirled by the hot wind.
·
Fun
(setting of condition): The devil nudged Annabel in the ribs. “Dare you to go in
and price them,” Annabel said.
·
Dare (setting of condition) “Yes, it is so, too,” Annabel said.
“People just came out. And there’s a doorman on. Dare you.”
·
Cool,
quiet (setting of condition): It was cool and
quiet, a broad, gracious room with paneled walls and soft carpet.
3.
Plot:
Plot of this story use kind of open plot,
because the end of the story is abstract. There is no significant resolution in
the story.
§ Beginning of the story:
Annabel and Midge came out of the
tea room with the arrogant slow gait of the leisured, for their Saturday
afternoon stretched ahead of them. They had lunched, as was their wont, on
sugar, starches, oils, and butter-fats. Usually they ate sandwiches of spongy
new white bread greased with butter and mayonnaise; they ate thick wedges of
cake lying wet beneath ice cream and whipped cream and melted chocolate gritty
with nuts.
§ Rising action:
Annabel had
invented the game; or rather she had evolved it from an old one. Basically, it
was no more than the ancient sport of what-would-you-do-if-you-had-a-million-dollars?
But Annabel had drawn a new set of rules for it, had narrowed it, pointed it,
and made it stricter. Like all games, it was the more absorbing for being more
difficult.
§
Climax:
Midge played
with a seriousness that was not only proper but extreme. The single strain on
the girls’ friendship had followed an announcement once made by Annabel that
the first thing she would buy with her million dollars would be a silver-fox
coat. It was as if she had struck Midge across the mouth. When Midge recovered her
breath, she cried that she couldn’t imagine how Annabel could do such a
thing—silver-fox coats were so common! Annabel defended her taste with the
retort that they were not common, either. Midge then said that they were so.
She added that everybody had a silver-fox coat. She went on, with perhaps a
slight toss of head, to declare that she herself wouldn’t be caught dead in
silver fox.
§
Falling
action:
They stepped
along in silence for a while. Then Midge’s eye was caught by a shop window.
Cool, lovely gleaming were there set off by chaste and elegant darkness “No,”
Midge said, “I take it back. I wouldn’t get a mink coat the first thing. Know
what I’d do? I’d get a string of pearls. Real pearl.
”Annabel’s eyes turned to follow Midge’s. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I think
that’s a kind of a good idea. And it would make sense, too. Because, you were
can use pearls with anything.” Together they went over to the shop window and
stood pressed against it.
4.
Conflict:
Person
versus fate:
They walked on. Slowly the disdain went, slowly and completely
as if drained from them, and with it went the regal carriage and tread. Their
shoulders dropped and they dragged their feet; they bumped against each other,
without notice or apology, and caromed away again. They were silent and their
eyes were cloudy.
The explanation
of this quote is they were give up for
their dream to buy pearls.
5.
Point of view:
The kind
of point of view is third person point of view (omniscient). Because the Author
did not appears in the story.
