7th Grades English Literature Teacher Marcela

1. 7th GradesEnglishLiteratureTeacher Marcela The Meeting The Oval Portrait

2. Tell the story: The Meeting • Theme: the death of two lovers • Characters: • Narrator: tells the story • Young man in Venice: famous, handsome, young man from London • Marchesa: young and beautiful, doesn’t love her husband • Mentoni: the Marchesa’s husband, and old and rich man (Much older than the Marchesa) • Place: Venice, Italy – “The city of dark secrets and silent waters”

3. Tellthestory: The Meeting • Events: • The narrator was in a gondola, on the Grand Canal. • He hears a scream. • The Marchesa’s child falls into the canal. • People run down the stairs to the water. • A handsome young man saves the child. • He takes the child in his arms and talks to the Marchesa. • Mentoni stands on the stairs, looking. • He doesn’t look happy. He looks bored. • The young man and the Marchesa talk and decide to meet one hour after sunrise. • She says “You were right... There is only one answer...”. • The young man invites the narrator to his house, at sunrise. • “Not a minute later!”

4. Tellthestory: The Meeting • Events (cont.): • The young man has a portrait of the Marchesa on the wall. • The narrator reads a letter from the Marchesa to the young man. • “Will you save from death my child – my child by him?” • One hour after midnight, the young man takes poison and dies. • A servant from the Mentoni house runs into the room screaming. • “Poison! She has taken poison! She is dead!”. • The narrator understands everything. • The Marchesa and the young man were lovers, the couldn’t live without each other, and decided to take poison and die together.

5. Describe the characters Find words in the book that describe the characters: • The Marchesa: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • The young man in Venice: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • Mentoni: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Tell the story: The Oval Portrait • Theme: a portrait of a dead woman who looks alive • Characters: • Narrator: tells the story • The painter: famous for his work, loves his work more than he loves his wife • The painter’s wife: beautiful, unhappy, hates everything about painting • Place: the Italian mountains

7. Tellthestory: The Oval Portrait • Events: • The narrator falls from his horse and gets hurt. • He finds a house and gets in, with his servant Pedro. • The house was very big, but dark and empty. • With a lot of modern paintings on the walls. • The narrator finds a book that explains the story of all the paintings. • The narrator sees a painting on the bedroom wall. • The oval portrait was of a beautiful, young woman. • It was a fine painting, but strange and different... “She looks alive...” • The narrator starts to shake and reads the story about the oval portrait.

8. Tellthestory: The Oval Portrait • Events (cont.): • The woman was young, very beautiful and very happy when she married the painter. • He was very famous for his art. • His work was her enemy, because he spent hours and hours painting, away from her. • She starts to hate everything about painting and becomes very unhappy. • The painter asks to paint a portrait of his wife. • She loves him and says yes. • He painted day after day, week after week, thinking only of his painting and not of his wife. • She is now thin. “He took the warm colour from her face and painted it into the face in his portrait” • After many weeks, he finished. “She LIVES in this portrait!”. • His wife was dead.

9. 2) Describe the characters Find words in the book that describe the characters: • The painter: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ • The painter’s wife: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10. 3) In the book “The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories”, what are the themes presented by Edgar Allan Poe? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

11. Answer key • TheMarchesa: “theloveliestwoman in allVenice”, beautiful, unhappy. Theyoungman in Venice: famous, handsome, British, rich Mentoni: old, veryrich, bored. • Thepainter: veryfamous, verygoodpainter, obsessedwithhis work. Thepainter’swife: verybeautiful, playful, fulloflifeandsmiles, unhappy. 3) Edgar Allan Poe presentsstoriesofdeath, murder, torture, prematureburials, fear, terror.