Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Qfwfq Essay

In The Aquatic Uncle and The Dinosaurs by Italo Calvino there is a character Qfwfq that he uses for both of his stories. In the stories Qfwfq can be very assuming and can make many assumptions about people he may or may not know.


                     Qfwfq can be very judgmental about things he doesn’t know. Before this quote Qfwfq assumes that a species called The New Ones doesn’t know what a dinosaur looks like. Also he jumps to conclusion about a female New One named Fern-Flower:

“For a moment i repented my action; if I wanted to save myself, I should tear her limb from limb at once : start it all over again . . . She turned an said : “NIce and cool isn’t it ?” (#98)

This quote defines Qfwfq as being very assuming and can jump to conclusion about people very easily. Some how he tends judge people before he gets to know them. As the story goes on you can find a pattern about Qfwfq that happens with almost everyone that he encounters. If Qfwfq keeps this up it could eventually prevent him from being with other people and with another person as his loved one.


                                 

                               Qfwfq misunderstands others and reads their reactions incorrectly. Although he’s already met a few of the members of the new ones he still doesn’t know how he’ll be greeted as he stumbles into their community:

”I reached the shore of the river. Where the New ones had their dens and finished for their living.... As soon as they saw me, they glanced up from their work and stopped. They looked at me, then at each other, dead silence,as if ,questioning one another “. And i prepared to leap to my defense.”(#99)

In this quote Qfwfq shows how he can be assuming about others. Also how he can misunderstand others and their reactions. This can lead to Qfwfq to do something he will regret doing later on. Though he doesn’t have intentions to hurt people mis reading who they are and what they will do can lead him into a bad situation.

                                      

                                   Qfwfq also shows to be misunderstanding in another story that shows called The Aquatic Uncle. Before this quote Qfwfq introduces his fiance to his great uncle N’ba N’ga. After a period of conversation Qfwfq is finally relieved to go home and is scared to know the comments he will get back from Lll:

” I was thinking that now she would begin to make her comments, that the worst was still to come. But then Lll, without stopping, turned slightly toward me: “ he’s very nice, your uncle,”and that was all  she said.” (#77)

This again shows how Qfwfq can misunderstand even the people closest to him. The quote shows that even though he has known his fiance long enough to want to get married to her he still somehow doesn’t know her on a much deeper level. He just assumed the way she would react about his uncle and somehow he was very wrong. Also like I said in my second statement how his pattern of assumptions can hurt people in this case he ends up hurting himself rather then others which seems to have been the worst person he could have hurt.

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