Part A:
Read "A Wagner Matinee" by Willa Cather to answer the following questions:
1. How would you describe the tone of this story? What in the story makes you say that?
This story has a lot of tones. There are parts where he sounds emotional and guilty especially when he remembers that Aunt Georgiana used to help him with his studies and as a kind lady. Now that shes almost unrecognizable wearing "ill-fitting false teeth", he feels guilty for not treating her better.
2. What does the narrator think of his aunt and uncle's relationship? How do you know?
It clearly shows in the story that they don't have a good relationship. Clark talks about his Aunt's life before marriage and how it was much more enjoyable than the current marriage life she has now.
Some of the next questions ask about the theme of the story. Remember, theme is different from tone. Review theme HERE.
3. What purpose does the description of the
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Tell me what you think the most beautiful passage is from this story. What makes it beautiful? How does it contribute to the theme? I thought this passage was really elegant. The details were amazing to the point that I could actually imagine was was happening. This is the passage where Clarks talks about the first time he went to the Orchestra with his Aunt. He says, "We sat at the extreme left of the first balcony, facing the arch of our own and the balcony above us, veritable hanging gardens, brilliant as tulip beds. The matinee audience was made up chiefly of women. One lost the contour of faces and figures—indeed, any effect of line whatever-and there was only the color of bodices past counting, the shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, silky and sheer: red, mauve, pink, blue, lilac, purple, ecru, rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the colors that an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and there the dead shadow of a frock coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them as though they had been so many daubs of tube-paint on a