The Dinner Party Literary Analysis

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Summary

In the short story The Verger”, a large dinner party is held by a colonial official and his wife. The guests are all rich, snobby, and opinionated, and they begin to argue about whether or not women would be scared of a mouse. The colonel makes sexist comments, claiming that women are easily frightened. However, an American guest realizes that there is a cobra in the room and plays a game with the party, instructing them not to move a muscle. The women jump when the snake moves toward a bowl of milk on the veranda, but the hostess proves the colonel wrong by revealing that the snake had crawled across her foot. The moral of the story is not to judge people’s reactions based on their gender.”

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There is a large dinner party held by a colonial official and his wife. All the guests seem rich, snobby, and very opinionated. They all start to argue and get side tracked especially the colonel. The colonel was so sexist and quick to jump and say that women are so eager to jump at the site of a gross animal to realize what was going on under the table. They start to argue on weather or not women would jump and get scared at a site of a mouse.

The colonel speaks up and basically starts rubbing in the women’s faces that they are easily frightened. He keeps talking and making everyone attention on him. While the colonel talks the American looks at the hostess and realizes something is wrong. The hostess calls the boy over and tells him something. The American then realizes that the boy got milk, put it in a bowl, and laid it out on the veranda. Then he remembered that’s how you summon a snake or cobra.

So he realized there must be a cobra in the room. Then the American spoke up over the colonel and played a game with the dinner party. He told them he would count to 300 and none of them were to move a muscle or they would lose 50 rupees. Then while he was counting the snake moved out on the veranda to the milk and the women jumped. The American closed the veranda doors. Then the colonel was quick to jump up and say see I told you the women all jumped up.

Then the American said no now wait a minute colonel, “Mrs. Wynnes how did you know to put the milk in a bowl on the veranda. ” She replied and said “Because it was crawling across my foot. ” She proved the colonel wrong. In conclusion, the colonel thought he was right. He only wanted to hear what he thought was right. But once he was proved wrong he was speechless. So the moral of the story is don’t be quick to judge a persons scared reactions toward something just because if there a male or female.

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