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.
19 comments:
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
Page 9-12
The short story “Katania” by Lara Vapnyar has a typical movie story line. The story starts out in early childhood of Katya and Tania. The writer refers herself as Katya in the story. It is ironic how Tania ends up with husband whose leg was “crippled” according to Katya when she visited Tania at the end of the story. “Pretty hard not to be in a house like this”, Tania didn’t even notice katya’s sarcasm because she was too caught up in showing off her house. Katya went through a lot of bad days; the death of her mother, her husband’s sickening words “I’m so sick of you!” and her divorce. She thought that Tania had a perfect life, filthy rich husband, own a six bedroom house, sauna, little farm and many more. It wasn’t until she saw Tania’s husband with a bad leg, walking “as if his left leg didn’t work”. It is ironic how Katya’s conflict with a crippled doll became Tania’s conflict having a husband with a bad leg.
172 words
Mateen Aminie
Conflict pages 1-4
The conflict between Tania and Katya, the two main protagonists in the short story Katania,, got intense over the “father doll”. This squabble can be compared to an explosion of a deep boiling magma. Lara Vapnyar orchestrated a doll story to explicate an external conflict that represented the unhappy socialist soviet society where some “items” (“banana, beef, and father”) were kept silent in everyday conversation. The internal discomfort of the characters was evident - Tania built an arrogant attitude and a “mocking expression” to hide her discontent at having been left by her father. Despite Katya’s acceptance of her father’s death, she flourished an enviable feeling for Tania’s courage – and also for the way she (Tania) showed herself off. The doll’s game was a portrait of the girls’ worlds – a modern occidental city “like they have in America” for Tania and a complete farm’s family for Katya The two girls were connected by the same resentment for what one has that the other doesn’t and later - when adult - they surprised each other with a life’s twist. Like a boomerang Tania married a man resembling the hated “father doll” in a countryside; Katya found herself divorced and living in a big American city.
204 words
Page 9-12
" KATANIA "by Lara Vapnyar, she presents the two protagonists -- they share the same sympathy "Fatherless": Katya’s death; Tania’s defected--.Vapnyar uses the setting from the past and the modern time to explains the conflict of the two seven years old fight over the father doll. This ends their friendships. Tania moves to different school. Kathy's family raises her with warm love and honesty. Tania's family spoils her. Vapnyar shows many traits in the story to the readers. For instance, Kathy gets the punishment right away after punches Tania: Tania throws tantrums about the wrong color of the cup, and her mom ignores it. The unsettled fight causes the internal conflict. The jealousy is in their mind. In high school, Snobby Tania invites Kathy to her fair well party. “My dad takes me to America”. In the adult life, Divorced Kathy is successful in her career that lives comfortably in America. Tania finds Kathy on Facebook and invites her to visit in the countryside. Tania shows off her house and let's Kathy go without offering any drinks or asking about her life. Kathy and Tania are "KATANIA"; it refers to America, the better place than Soviet Union in their dream. Indeed, Vapnyar makes sure the negative one gets her karma to marry the cripple man like the father doll.
--220 Words--
Setting Pages 1-4
The short fiction "Katania" by Lara Vapnyar is a work in rich with setting. The title itself deriving from a combinations of two girls' names, an unreal place shows the reader that the story has many different and creative settings. In the pages one through four, Vapnyar describes a doll people's home as "a red shoebox painted to look like a house, with a dark-brown roof and yellow awnings," showing that Katya, a seven-year-old girl, owns a "make believe", dream house. Outside the shoebox, "[Katya] also had a few plastic farm animals -- a cow, a pig, a goat, and a chicken," reveals that Katya, as a little girl, subconsciously hankers for the idyllic pastoral life. Inside the shoebox, a grandma doll, a mother doll, two baby dolls and one pretty little doll, who represented Katya, live together perfectly. Furthermore, for Katya, it is "perfectly normal" although "what [Katya's] family lacked was a father." Similar to Katya, Tania also lose father. The reader can realize a great deal about two girls' experiences when raised without a father from "[Katya] was so stunned by [Tania's] sudden change of mood" and "[Tania] swung her schoolbag as if she were about hit [Katya]." Creatively, at the end of the story, Vapnyar brings the reader a shocked setting: a beautiful house looks remarkable like Katya's old shoebox, beautifully situated in a pastoral surrounding. It is Tania's dream home!
--words 243
Setting (pages 1-4)
The setting in pages 1-4 of the story Katania by Lara Vapnyar started out by describing the female dolls of Katya which shows how important they are to her as well as how a family lives fatherless in the Soviet Union due to war and other matters.Then the story describes the places where both, the dolls and the place where Tania and Katya live. Katya's dolls live in a farm with "a cow, a pig, and a really huge chicken" while Tania's dolls live in a city with "airplanes and skyscrapers." Tania lives in an apartment with only one room with her mother while Katya lives in a three-roomed house with her mother and grandmother. Both Katya's real home and her doll's home had much more furniture than Tania's home and doll house. This shows that what the girl's see around them they want it for their dolls as well. When Katya had gotten a male doll from her uncle she added it to her doll family because she secretly she wanted to have a fatherly figure in her life. While Tania's father was in America so she had added an airplane in her doll house to become closer to her father. Hence, the setting shows the difference between Katya's life and Tania's life.
word count: 215 words
Page5-8 Conflict
“Katania,” a story written by Lara Vapnyar, represents a dramatic conflict between two young girls. In the pages five through eight, the narrator describes how a doll destroys the friendship of them. Tania is a sensitive and capricious girl, and Katya is a girl loving her “family of doll people.” They work together to create a country for their dolls. Because of their friendship, they decide to combine their names to name it—Katania. They feel so much fun that they don’t want to separate in the summer vacation. It looks like that two girls build a close friendship. When Katya receives a “father” doll from her uncle, what she wants to do at first is “I couldn’t wait to show my new doll to Tania.” As a girl without her father (who has defected,) Tania is deeply attracted by the “father” doll. However, Tania starts to laugh at it when she notices “his left leg was dangling in his pants,” since she envies what Katya has. Then, Katya can’t help exposing Tania’s lie that her father betrays his family. They quarrel, even hit each other; the accident makes their friendship broken. It stimulates Tonia so strong that she unconsciously designs her home according to Katya’s doll house when she becomes an adult living in America.
——216 words
Delshad Amini Conflict, Pages 9-12
Stuck in the Past
The short story " Katania" by Lara Vapnyar has a lot of conflicts which help the readers to
know the characters. In my opinion, the internal conflicts in " Katania" are more important
than the externals one. Katia, the protagonist , lives in her nostalgia where she has a many of
dolls which are playing as a real pearson in her life. When she gets older , she compares
everybody with her childhood's dolls. For instance, the Tania's husband who " walked as if his
left leg didn't work" in her mind , looks just like her Bolgarian doll. On the other hand, the
writer doesn't give us any information about Katia's husband and their divorce reasons.We
just know that " her husband had left her" .Also, the narrator uses the short words " up and
went " to show the conflict between Katia and her husband ,who "was sick of her". The most
important conflict in " Katania" is the Katia's perspective to communicate with her society.
Time and experience cahnge a person's perspective , but Katia is different. She is stuck in the
past .In contrast, we can find a lot of external conflicts in those pages : (1) the conflict
between Katia and Tania when they are child and " they get in a big fight" , because Katia
"wouldn't share her dolls " , (2) the conflict between Katia and her mom when Katia's mom
punishes her " by taking away her dolls for two months." , (3) the conflict between Katia and
her car's GPS when she doesn't care about GPS guidances , and many more.
247words
Pages five through eight the author Lara Vapnyar brings the two main characters friendship through a fight and an abrupt ending to their friendship. Tanya goes over to Katya's place and dementedly starts to scan the living quarters. After she learns Katya has her own room Tanya asks "you're rich, aren't you?" This shows that Tanya is clearly a bit jealous about their differing social classes. She tries to play it off by saying "you may be rich, but I have my freedom." Katya had three bedrooms while Tanya had only one. Everything Tanya had was smaller and this is why she needed to say something about freedom, making it seem any material thing or larger home that Katya had wasn't as important as freedom. They spent the whole summer apart. While they were apart for the summer Katya did not do much, until she received a boy doll. she immersed herself in the doll world once again completely in love with the boy doll. She liked to sit him in the sofa with the animals and girl dolls as they watch a matchstick television. She could not wait to show her new doll to Tanya. Once she got the chance to show the new doll to Tanya it did not go too well. She saw the doll and said it was damaged and called it a cripple. This made Katya mad and she told Tanya her father was worse and that he ran off and didn't love her. This fight ended their childhood friendship.
Lara Vapnyar, the author of the short story “Katania” was able to show readers two completely different lives Katya and Tania were living in. In pages five through eight, there friendship began to come to a complete spiral when Tania was invited over for dinner, “I was a little worried that Tania wouldn’t like the food and would throw a tantrum or something”. Katya started to have some doubts about having Tania over. “See this key, I can come and go as I please”. Katya’s main conflict was her friendship with Tania, she was always trying to give Tania the benefit of the doubt and be accepting to certain behaviors that she started to see. Katya was able to overcome small gestures that Tania was making until she started to get physically violent with Tania after she had returned home. “He’s a cripple, all right. And look at that stupid smile is he retarded too”
Tania started to throw fist because of all the internal emotions she had bottled up. Her friendship shortly ended after the incident at her house. Both children grew up and went their separate ways where they soon realized how completely different they were.
-200 words
The story “Katania” by Lara Vapnyar has interesting setting at pages five through eight. First, Tania shows her dolls to Katya, but only two of them - the pretty ones. She hid the third and said she “is away on a business trip”, as on purpose. I suppose that Tania did not want her broken, ugly doll to be seen. Next time the girls met at Katya’s place. Tania was puzzled and considered Katya’s family rich. There is huge difference between hers and Katya’s home. Her flat was smaller, with one room and older furniture compared to Katya’s three room apartment with her own room and a balcony. The girls created their own imaginary country for their dolls, combining its name from their own. They decided that Katania “should have only two inhabited places:” a village, where Katya’s farmer family lived with their animals, and a city, which inhabitants were Tania’s girls. After months of creating map of this country, the summer vacation came and Katya received a father doll. She liked it a lot, although it had broken hip. In the end it is ironic, that Tania, whose dolls lived in a city, ended up with a family exactly like that of Katya’s dolls. She had big house, garden, chickens, and even a husband with wrong leg.
218 words
Setting Page 5-8
The story “KATANIA” by Lara Vapnyar is a very interesting story. It contains a detailed settings about Katya’ s shoebox through out the whole story. Especially in Page 5-8, the author gives a sense of jealousy to those pages which progressively led to the big fight between Katya and Tania later in the story. Jealousy is the main emotion occurred between the two of them. It begins in Page 5 when Tania visited Katya’s room and she observed everything including: balcony, rug, and each everyone of Katya’s doll. Then she said to Katya: “ you may be rich, but I have my freedom.”( Tania has the key to her house; therefore, she can come and go as she please and does not have to listen to anybody.). Katya found her word “ nauseating”. It demonstrates that Tania was trying to prevail over Katya because Katya is richer than her. However, Katya also “gloated a litter” in Page 6 when she knew Tania’s father was defected. Their emotion burst in Page 8 when Tania called the father doll “ cripple and retard”. Katya said Tania’s father hated her. And they started fighting each other. The fight closed their friendship which made them avoiding each other at school nor talking to each other anymore. It also led to an event- Tania’s going-away party because she is going to America to reunion her father - later in the story. Tania invited Katya, but did not talked to her because she wanted to prove Katya is wrong, to prove her father did care about her after all. The emotion jealousy was created using Katya’s room as a setting in those Pages because the author wanted to expose Katya and Tania’s conflicts.
-256 words
Setting page 9-12
The short fiction "Katania" written by Lara Vapnyar shows fully detailed settings. In the page 9, their childhoods are ended and their adult lives are started. Katya's situation: her immigration, divorce, and her two-week summer vacation can be settings of character's social environment. Also, there are two physical settings; first one is Tania's countryside village; second one is Tania's house. "The quaint houses, barns, animals" made Katya "feel both nostalgic and alienated". Likewise, the view "a meadow, a little pond, ducks..." brings her a memory of her old shoe box, the doll house. Tania's house tour is described her happy, wealthy life in detail with "Hemlock timber", "Finnish sauna", "Six bedrooms", "Pond", "Antique sofa", "Family portrait". (additionally Evian water!) By these settings, Katya realizes that she had never wanted the country life, but Tania had really yearned for it. So their lives became exactly like "Katania", an imaginary country they created. (Katania=Katya+Tania. How cute!) Page 12 is the solution part of every conflict. Many settings that I mentioned make this story's ending more absorbingly and more mysteriously, and those help making a big twist.
-184 words
Conflicts on Page 9-12
The Story “Katania” introduces many conflicts between the two girls—Katya and Tania, and conflicts between what they liked in childhood and what they have when grown up. They created their toll country “Katania” from their names, but they are never getting along with well. From fighting for father doll which ended their childhood friendship, to no communicating each other when Katya was invited on Tania’s going-away party, until Tania’s “never-ending tour,” all shows a pattern of admire -jealous- show off- dislike –escape from each other. Very interestingly, these two girls seem always to play an opposite way. Katya liked her dolls to have a farm style life, while Tania insisted hers in a city style. When they met after a couple of decades, the irony is that Katya felt the countryside too “nostalgic and alienated” and “never want to live in,” while Tania “built herself an exact replica” of Katya’s farm doll house. Katya provoked Tania by saying “Up and went, he is sick of you”. Years after, she suffered the cruel fruit by her divorce. It is an opportunity to learn how children were raised in single mom families and how that affects their growing up.
--201 words
Setting 9-13
In “Katania,” Lara Vapnyar uses the setting as her primary tool, for humor and to focus our attention. The most important object in the story is Katya's box of dolls. The box of dolls is used to draw extra attention to Tania's lifestyle when Katya visits her. Their lifestyles are utterly opposite of how their dolls live with Tania living in the country and Katya in the city, when Katya's dolls “lived in a village and [Tania's] lived in a city.” This shows a major change from their childhood when Tania was the one who seemed to prefer the city. Katya also greatly changed with her ideal that was shown in her dolls becoming a place that she would “never want to live in.” Lara Vapnyar also uses the father doll from Katya's childhood to provide some great and memorable humor with Tania's family. Without the mirroring of Tania's family with Katya's doll's the story would lose its punchline and be largely forgettable; instead the story sticks in your mind because of the humor that is completely “detached” from reality.
Word Count: 180
On Pages 5-8 of “Kataina” by Lara Vapnyar we can know a bit about main characters, two seven years old girls - Tania and Katya. Shot Tania’s remark (“you’re rich”) about the Katya’s place, that was done by her quick “inspection”, demonstrates Tania know the meaning of word “rich” and “poor” in spite of her young age. As a person, who has lived in The Soviet Union until eighteen years old, I should explain one fact. De jure it was disgraceful to desire wealth; de facto the most of all people desire wealth but kept it back. Tania understands this sophisticated side because she had to be premature due to her father’s escape to USA and all negative consequences for family (for example, Tania’s mother could be fired, Tania could be abuse by her classmates or neighbors.) Opposite Katia lives in happy child world not knowing about wealth and poorness as many Soviet kids. I tend to see in Tania’s “nauseating” demonstrating of key, as a set-off her freedom to Katya’s wealth, defensive reaction of spoiled and envious, but unhappy and offended by life, child. We can see also how deeply was her soul wound because absence of father. “A stiffness of her movements”, while she was picking father doll up, persuade us that it was too difficult for her to admit father’s present in another even doll family. And “an expression of relief”, when she found out any disadvantages in the doll, support the idea Tania believed her father was the best of all despite his escape. Children can be very cruel; Tania teased Katya by insulting her admired toy, Katya answered by offending Tania’s father. By farther reading we can see this argue was just one of the episode from her childhood for Katya; for Tania this dramatic moment left a scar in her soul that influence her all life and may be her choosing of partner in life (food for psycho analytic’s reflection.)
326 words
In the story "Katania" there were a lot of description on the setting, especially between pages six- seven. On theses pages Katya and Tanya created a country called Katinia, this was created by combining both their names. As creative as both these girls, they started making there new found country on the floor of the apartment with four large papers glued together. They made the roads brown, as they swerved through the greens of there land, they described the roads to go as far as the blue ocean. To get back to the main part of their country they built a bridge that went over their river that was made from foil, that was from a chocolate wrapper. As all these add ons were put together by glue, you could tell this country resembled the messiness of Katya, and Tanya for they both described the patches of glue sticking out to look like "snot." To Tanya and Katya this was their perfect little country, filled with there stainless steal settings.
-174 Words
Setting (pg. 5-8)
Pages 5-8 Conflict
"KATANIA" short story written by Lara Vapnyar illustrates the difference of lifestyle of two girls Katya and Tania. The title being mixture of both of their name for the "toy town" they've created. In the pages between five and eight many conflict was set. As there friendship was becoming stronger(despite from arguing so much), Tania had to go to village at her grandfathers for the summer. Which wasn't so pleasant for Katya "I was sorry when summer started because I knew Tania would be going", because she wanted to spend her summer with Katya since her summer was uneventful. One of the conflict was the doll that Katya received from her uncle, while back from the trip from Bulgaria. Katya couldn't wait to show it to Tania when she came back from the village. The toy that Katya received resembled her dad. What Katya didn't noticed is Tania would make fun of her for the doll because it has a "bad hip." When Tania said "He's a cripple" it made Katya frustrated which led her in saying "Your father is worse!" This doll became the end of their friendship. Although, they had a fight that separated them into their on ways for couple years Tania invited Katya for her party.
-210 words -
The short story “Katania” by Lana Vapnyar, illustrates two girls finding each others qualities and flaws to defend their own self in our anxious society. When Katya visited Tania’s apartment she was surprised by Tania’s “admirable kill” to unlock the door since Katya never had to bother opening door. Meanwhile, after boring summer Tania was excited to show Katya her father doll. When Tania came inside Katya’s room she got jealous as Katya had her own room. Therefore, when Katya showed her father doll Tania responded saying that that doll is “crippled” and both got into a fight. Without thinking Katya called Tania’s father a “traitor” that ultimately ended their friendship of young age. Later in the story, when two reunite with each other, everything is mystified as both live like they had played during their childhood, except Katya who had farm for her dolls now hates the idea of countryside while Tania’s dolls “lived” in a city now she resides at village. It was interesting too see clymax build up and suddenly end with Tania’s husband having a “crippled” hip; I enjoyed this psychological mystery/horror ending.
-188 words
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