asocial

adjective :rejecting or lacking the capacity for social interaction

from “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”

“Of course, crazy is not the official definition of my mental problem, but I don’t think asocial disorder fits it, either, because that makes me sound like I’m a serial killer or something.”

Avid

Avid: adjective: desirous to the point of greed, urgently eager

From “The Shawl”: For he kept seeing his mother put the baby and grip his sister around the waist. He saw the brown shawl with its red lines flying open. He saw the shadows, the wolves, rush together, quick and avid, as the wagon with sled runners disappeared into the distance- forever, for neither he nor his father saw Aanakwad again.

Now I came to know that the boy used to see a nightmare where his mother and sister are being chased by quick and hungrily greedy wolves.

Haughty

Haughty: adjective: having or showing the insulting attitude of people who think that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people

From the story ” A Rose for Emily”, ” ‘I want some poison’. she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look.”

Now I understand that when Emily asked for the poison, she had a very dominating look in her eyes so that she won’t be questioned about buying the poison.

the overuse of adjectives

hi everyone I’m so sorry this is late. I’m a manager/supervisor at Stop and Shop and with this snow storm i was stuck at work all weekend because customers like to over-react.

I read the short story The Cottagette from The Forerunner, Volume 1 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

I for one had to read this short story twice to fully understand it. The first time when I read it my mind was spinning because of the amount of adjectives that she uses. The author really does an excellent job of painting an image through words. Her sense of imagery is amazing.

Some of  her uses of adjectives in  the story I really liked the way she worded certain things like ” The working basis of the establishment was an eccentric woman named Caswell, a sort of musical enthusiast , who had a summer school of music and the “higher things”. Malicious persons, not able to obtain accommodation there, called the place “High C” The one adjective i liked was “eccentric”.Eccentric refers to unusual or odd behavior that contrasted to what is considered normal behavior.

In one paragraph of the story she says “There was one big room and two little ones in the tiny thing, though from the outside you wouldn’t have believed it, it looked so small; but small as it was it harbored a miracle– a real bathroom with water piped from mountain springs. Our windows opened into the green shadiness, the soft brownness, the bird-inhabited quiet flower- starred woods. In this one half of a paragraph the author in my opinion uses way too many adjectives to describe the cottage  Her overuse of adjectives made my head spin. The author says that her windows opened to view the “green shadiness, the soft brownness, the bird-inhabited quiet flower- starred woods”. WHAT? Couldn’t she just say that when she looked out her window she saw the woods, filled with birds and flowers. That’s it. It was an unnecessary part of the story.

I understand imagery and i understand how important it is for fiction and literature. I just feel that for me there is a line and she crossed it. This short story was very boring and really didn’t have much of a story to it.