Joseph Garcia

AP Language
Ms. Pasche
8/20/13
Critical Essay: Statement One

Thomas Hardy once stated, A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling; it
must have something more unusual to relate then the ordinary experience of every average man
and woman. This means that a story is a story as long as it delivers a moral. If a piece of
writing, that has a beginning middle and end, sends the reader a message to learn, then that piece
of writing is considered a story. According to Thomas Hardy, if a story does not give a life
lesson then it is unacceptable. The reader needs a moral and that moral is something that no man
or woman could ever experience in an ordinary, everyday life.
I agree with Thomas Hardy and his statement. I believe that a reader reads a novel to
learn something. Stories teach people a moral lesson and people hold that with them forever. The
messages people get from the stories make these stories worth telling. People learn from the
mistakes the characters make and people look up to the success the characters make. I believe the
moral is the back bone of the story which gives the story meaning. No one wants to read a story
that has no meaning to it and is not inspiring.
According to Thomas Hardy a story is unusual and cannot relate to the everyday average
man and woman. This is true because the story has to give a message and if the average man or
woman can relate to the story, then everyone would already know the message. This makes the
story pointless.
Both of the stories Invisible Man and Animal Farm are examples of stories that give
a moral and they are stories that no average man or woman will experience. The focuses of the
stories revolve around the character questioning his or her morals. An average man or woman
will ever experience these stories but they would learn an important lesson from them.
In Invisible Man, the main character is an African American who grew up poor and is a
descendant of a family who went through slavery. In the beginning of the story the main
character believes that his duty, being an African American, is to please white folk. The
character shows this by taking part in fights as mere entertainment for white people, and driving
white people to where ever they want to go. The main character believes that as long as he does
this then everything will be okay for him.
It turns out that the main character has a talent to do public speaking. He gives his high
school speech to a group of white people that were in a meeting. They laughed at him and
mocked him. I noticed that this was the start when the main character dislikes the way white
people are treating him.
The main character is then a junior at a state college for black youth. This is where he
drives Mr. Norton to a man named Trueblood and exposes him to blacks. He then gets in trouble
but says, I was only trying to please him(Ellison 139) The main character gets angry again
when he gets kicked out of school to work a job in New York. The main character gets more
upset when he literally destroys his career at Liberty Paints. The character then learns to stop
taking orders and eventually gave a motivating speech that helped an evicted couple and gave
him a position in a committee called the Brotherhood.
This character learns that life is not all about being a follower but by being a leader and
making your own decisions. This message makes this story an acceptable story.
Animal Farm is another unusual story which involves conflicts between characters. In
this story, animals are convinced that they must throw over the human race and have a world
ruled by animals. The animals start this off simple by throwing the farmer out of his own home
and selecting the leaders. This decision was made by who was the smartest, which were the pigs.
The pigs started to set rules and gave themselves higher authority. This was the beginning of
socialism for the farm.
One pig, named Napoleon, decides to make a dictatorship by getting rid of the
competition and making animals do as he says. This was the result of wanting too much power
for oneself. Having power seems to be a good thing but not controlling that power can lead to
disasters. Napoleon is an example of abusing his power and readers can learn from his mistakes.
This story gives a moral that readers can carry with them and according to Thomas Hardy, that is
what makes a story a story.
According to Thomas Hardys quote a story is a story as long as it can give meaning to its
telling and that meaning has to be given through an unusual experience that no average man or
woman can relate. Both stories, Invisible Man and Animal Farm, are examples that proves
Hardys quote. I agree with this statement and continue to learn the morals that stories give.



Works Cited:
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Random House, Inc. 1945
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. C.M. Woodhouse. 1946