How does Danny seifer provoke your interest in the baby who came to stay?

Answer 1

The title of the story is "The Baby Who Came to Stay" and it is written by Danny Seifer. It is a narrative prose which is naturally made up of a series of events. It is the story of a family in which a newborn infant comes into being. There are five characters in the narrative: the father, the mother (Maxine), the boys (Mark and Andrew), and the infant (Jeffrey). The father is the narrator of the story and he relates it from first person point of view. The subject matter of the story is jealousy. The main conflict of the story lies in the fact that the parents being modern educated ones greatly rely on the theoretical information which is found in psychological books. Therefore, they think that with the introduction of the baby into the family, the elder brothers naturally will show jealousy towards it because they think that their parent's love is directed to the baby and thereby they will be less loved than before. (This kind of jealousy is called sibling jealousy.) Nevertheless, what happened in reality was different and unexpected: the children "were immediately enchanted" with the baby. This caused the parents to think that their children are pretending to love the baby in order to protect themselves from being underestimated and degraded. This strategy and reaction was considered as "false front" by the parents. So they started to reassure the children of their love. On the other hand, the children's love was real and not a mere pretension; therefore, the parent's misunderstanding lead to another misunderstanding on the part of children – they thought their parents are jealous of the boys because Jeff loves them more than them. The story starts with an exposition, meaning that the writer introduces the situation to the reader in the first paragraph. To provoke the reader's interest, the writer raises a question: why are the boys "enchanted"? This way, he creates suspense and the readers naturally will follow the events in order to know the answer to the question. In the course of the story and through a series of actions and reactions, the problem gradually gets bigger and more complex up to its greatest possible extent. This point is called the climax of the story and the points in which the problem gets more tense and complex are called turning points. In this story, each time the parents face an unexpected reaction, we have a turning point. (Maxine, Mark) interaction: "freeing himself from her kiss…", (Andrew, father) interaction: "he shifted her shoulder from under my comforting arms …", (Mark, parents) interaction: "go away for a while …", and (boys, parents) interaction: " … 'cause you're jealous …", are different examples of turning points in the story. These are the key events in the story. The first two interactions are called the rising actions and they increase the intensity of the problem and help provoke the reader's interest. The third interaction ("the last straw") is where the problem reaches its height, so it is the climax of the story. The last interaction is the resolution or the point when the problem is solved and the cause of all these misunderstandings is revealed. The theme of a story is the central idea that connects every other part of the story together. The theme should be a sentence. However in a descriptive piece of prose, usually there is no theme but a subject matter. The easiest way to get to the theme of a work is to ask ourselves, "What is the story trying to tell us?" The theme of this story may be that: you cannot always rely on books because things that happen in reality are not always mentioned in the books. The writer's diction – the choice and use of words in a text – also helps to the essential point the writer is trying to make. The words used by the parents (like "sibling jealousy", unperturbed behavior", "unshakable basic sense of security", "reassurance", "false front", "normal disturbed reaction", …etc.) are quite technical and scientific while those used by the children ("mummy", "daddy", "You bet", "don't be cross with…", … etc.) are quite simple and natural for a child. This choice of words is quite intentional. This way, the writer wants to show the opposition between the practical reality in nature and the theoretical knowledge in books. Besides, use of negative words such as "unnatural", "unperturbed", "unshakable", & "unresented" intensifies the above opposition. It also shows that the parents' expectations arising from the books have not been satisfied.