How are each of the three main characters described? Cite the specificdetails from the text
What will be an ideal response?
- The first two words of the story are “Nicolas Vidal,” and the first thing we are told is that he has, in effect, a rendezvous with destiny. The lonely circumstances of his birth, his upbringing, his scars, his pride, and his independence all create a romantic aura about Vidal that inevitably directs our attention to him and leads us to view him as the story’s protagonist. He is a bandit who has “tempered his soul to the hardness of iron” (par. 2).
Twice his wife’s age and a lifelong bachelor with “fussy habits,” Judge Hidalgo is described as a harsh man, whose execution of the law with “severity and stubbornness . . . even at the expense of justice had made him feared throughout the province” (par. 1). The narrator states that Hidalgo “refused to apply any common sense in the exercise of his profession, and was equally harsh in his condemnation of the theft of a chicken as of a premeditated murder” (par. 1). He always wears black, and he always attends mass on Sundays with his wife.
Nicolas Vidal’s first impression of the Judge’s wife, Casilda, is unfavorable and misinformed. Even as the Judge’s verdicts are intolerant and narrow-minded, so are Vidal’s assumptions about Casilda. He describes her as an “ethereal slip of a girl” who “seemed to him almost ugly,” with “fingers obviously unskilled in the arts of rousing a man to pleasure” (par. 1). However, Casilda defies all expectations. She not only survives the harsh and unfamiliar climate to which she has been brought, but she actually thrives there. It is she who softens her husband, moving him from a rigid inflexibility in the administration of “justice” to a much more sensitive and compassionate approach (par. 1). The town is shocked when Casilda “emerged happy and smiling from three pregnancies in rapid succession.” It is she who demonstrates a level of heroism, resourcefulness, self-sacrifice, especially after her husband dies in the car crash. By the story’s end, the reader assumes that it is her “perfect example of delicacy and refinement” (par. 1) mixed with her sensuality and sexuality that transform both her husband and Nicolas Vidal.
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E.Write a letter to your friend in which you tell her about your family. Be sure to include five people, including the following information: a) their names, b) the relationship, and c) what pets they have. Modelo:Mi abuelo se llama José. Es el papá de mi mamá. No tiene mascotas.
What will be an ideal response?
You can sharpen your listening skills during a lecture by focusing on
a. facts rather than ideas. b. significant trends and patterns. c. the speaker’s voice. d. the speaker’s personality.
___________________, un volcan actif, domine la partie sud de l’île de Basse-Terre.
Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).
Indica la respuesta correcta según las Notas culturales de esta lección.
Los inmigrantes en España vienen de estos países, EXCEPTO: a. Australia b. el Ecuador c. Marruecos