Week 5, Analysis

I have decided to do a close reading post for week 5 of the reading Ambrose Bierce.

       The section that I am choosing to write about is on page 242, and its the second paragraph on that page that takes up about 3/4 of the page. I chose to talk about this because it was interesting to me, and shocked me a little bit. As I was reading the story, some of it was confusing to me, and I didn't understand it as clearly as I understand most readings. Then, as I was reading, we got to the part that interests me, and it sort of tied things together and I was able to understand the story a little bit better. The scene in the story that I am referring to is when the man entered Maxon's "machine room" late on a stormy night. What went on in the room surprised me, and I was not expecting that scene to go down like it did. The man was observing Maxon, and also observing a man that looked to be a machine while they were playing chess. When the man mentioned that the person playing with Maxon looked to be a machine, I understood why Maxon kept asking the question, "do you believe machines think on their own?" At this point, I also made the connection on why Maxon called this room the machine room.
       As I went back through that paragraph, I noted down the things that brought attention to me, and the word choice and metaphors the author decided to use from this paragraph. Some words that were interesting to me that helped analyze the story better were: humming/buzzing, whirring of wheels, disordered mechanism, convulsion, body and head shook like a man, sprang to its feet, hands close upon his throat, clutch its wrists, dreadfully distinct noise, and squawking sounds. From these words, I was able to understand there was a fight, but not just any fight. A machine had basically come to life to become a violent human, and attacked Maxon. I think this was sort of payback to Maxon for treating these machines poorly when they would play chess together.
       As I have broken this paragraph down, mu opinion hasn't changed about anything but the meaning of the story has changed a little. At first, I was quite confused on the whole scene that had just happened. After breaking it down and underlining the key words and phrases that stood out to me, I made the connection that there was a fight, and a meaning behind that fight. Maxon had been seen violently celebrating his win of chess towards the machines. That night something happened, and somehow the machine came to life. When this happened, the machine ultimately went after Maxon and the only reason I could think of it being this way was for revenge, for all the times Maxon had treated the machine poorly in their game of chess.
       This was the ending of the story, and I believe this was a source of resolution. It allowed me to understand the characters more clearly, and actually understand the story more clearly also. There were no other instances in this text like this one. The only time there was a ruckus it was behind closed doors, and Maxon did not seem worried. The affects that this scene had on the story was tremendous, as one of the main characters got killed by a machine.