ENG1501
Short Story
Analysis.
‘Supermarket Soliloquy’ by Moira Crosbie Lovell
Think about before reading the short story
1. Look up the word ‘soliloquy’ online or in a dictionary and write down its meaning.
What does this make you think the story will be about?
2. Read the story twic...
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Think about before reading the short story
1. Look up the word ‘soliloquy’ online or in a dictionary and write down its meaning.
What does this make you think the story will be about?
2. Read the story twice and summarise what happens in it in in no more than four
sentences.
3. Underline any words that you do not understand and look up what they mean online or in
a dictionary. Write down the words and their meanings.
Close reading
Narration
1. Read the first four paragraphs of the story again. The fourth paragraph is one line long
and reads: ‘Just like life’. This is the key to understanding what this story is about: the
narrator compares a visit to the supermarket to different experiences in life.
2. Identify the kind of narrator used and justify your answer. Write a paragraph in which
you explain the effect of this kind of narration.
Plot and setting
1.The plot in this story is unusual. What is more important: the action that takes place or the
thoughts of the narrator? Write a paragraph in which you explain your answer.
2. The title of the short story gives a very clear indication of where the story is set. Write
a paragraph in which you explain how significant the setting is to the story’s overall meaning.
Symbolism
In the following sections, we are going to look at a few examples of the extended metaphor
in the story in detail but there are other examples that we are not going to cover here. Find
these on your own and make sure that you understand them.
1. Read the extract below carefully:
As you move towards the cheese trough, you catch a glimpse of yourself in an unexpected
mirror. You have an urge to charge it with gross misrepresentation. A distortion of yourself
leers up at you as you lean over. Your face is a creased feta cheese white.
1.1 What literally happens in this section? Explain it in your own words.
1.2 The last sentence in the section is a metaphor. Explain the effect of the metaphor (i.e.
what is being compared to what? What do these things have in common? What is the effect
of this?).
2. Read the following paragraph which comes directly after the one quoted above: Other
cheeses present a range of past complexions; chubby, baby-smooth Mozzarella; freckle-
faced Pepato; bride-white Camembert; tanned Red Cheshire; jaundiced Cheddar. You cast a
furtive eye on the blue-veined Gorgonzola up ahead and settle, after all, for the feta.
2.1. The words in bold are different kinds of cheeses. Look up pictures of each of
these cheeses online if you do not know what they look like.
2.2 Now look up online or in a dictionary what the word ‘complexion’ means, if you have not
, already done so.
2.3 Think about the words used to describe each of the cheeses: ‘baby-smooth’; ‘freckle-
faced’; ‘bride-white’; ‘tanned’; ‘jaundiced’. What figure of speech is being used here? Write a
paragraph in which you explain the effect. (Think back to the narrator’s statement, ‘Just like
life’.)
2.4 Why do you think the narrator chooses the feta cheese after all? Write a paragraph in
which you explain your answer. To answer this question, you need to think carefully about
the progression in the description above (from ‘baby-smooth’ to ‘jaundiced’). Consider what
you think the ‘blue-veined Gorgonzola could represent.
3. Read the following paragraph carefully:
A little further on there’s a refrigerator shelf stacked with great plastic breasts of milk. You
hold one in each hand, feeling the weight, pressing them gently. They are as full as yours
used to be. A brimming cup of C. And nippleless. As yours are now, awaiting reconstruction.
For a moment, weighing the smooth packets in the scales of your palms, you think you won’t
bother after all, with that
final artifice. You have no need now of nipples. Either for feeding or for flirting.
3.1 Look up the words ‘literal’ and ‘figurative’ in the Toolkit on page 87 of Tutorial Letter 501.
3.2 Write down the literal meaning of this paragraph.
3.3 The figurative meaning of this paragraph is introduced through the use of personification
in the first sentence. Identify the personification and comment on its effectiveness.
3.4 Sometimes authors convey meaning through implying something rather than stating
it directly. What is the narrator implying when she says, ‘As yours are now,
awaiting reconstruction’?
3.5 What is the ‘final artifice’ the narrator feels she will not bother with? Explain why
she comes to this decision.
4. Reread pages 223 and 224 of the story. In this section, the narrator compares the
men she could have married but did not to grocery items in the supermarket.
4.1 Identify the four grocery items she associates with each of the men.
4.2 Write a few sentences about each of these men, explaining what their associated
grocery item reveals about their personalities.
Theme
What is the theme of this short story? Write a paragraph in which you explain your answer
and provide evidence from the short story as substantiation.
ANSWERS
Think about before reading the short story
1. Look up the word ‘soliloquy’ online or in a dictionary and write down its meaning.
What does this make you think the story will be about?
A soliloquy is “an act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself”. The word is usually
used to refer to characters in a play who give monologues about their thoughts or the events
of the play. Thus, you might either say that you think that the short story will be about
someone’s thoughts or feelings, or have something to do with a play or stage production.
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