Analysis of a story: The Unicorn in the Garden

                                                           

We watched this link to acquire some tools to analyse the story

Our analysis

Parts of a Story: The Unicorn in the Garden

Setting:

Time: A sunny morning

In Spring.

Place: A house

Plot:

Rising actions: the man sees a Unicom and tells his wife about it

Conflict: she doesn’t believes him

Climax: there's a phone call

Falling action: the professionals go the house

Denouement: They believe him and take her to a mental institution

Conflict:

External: man vs. women

Characters:

Main: husband and wife

Supporting: doctor, policeman, unicorn 

Point of view:

Third person

Possible interpretations. Our view of the story "A unicorn in the garden"

Possible interpretations. Our view

(1) The story is about a man who has hallucinations and tries to tell his wife about the things he sees. But his wife gets impatient and warns him to stop telling unreal stories or she will lock him up in a medical institution.

The man continues, so his wife desperately calls a medical institution. 

However, when the doctors arrive they find the woman is very excited and the man very is quiet and coherent, so they think the crazy one is the woman and take her to the institution instead of her husband.

(2) This is the story of a man who plans to lock up his wife in a mental institution. So, he invents a lie to pretend he is nuts, and when his wife calls a doctor he denies everything and he makes the doctor and the policeman believe that the woman is crazy. Finally, they take her with them and his plan is a success.

Dialogues that could have been included in the story: "A unicorn in the garden"

Dialogues that could have been included in the story. Our versions, once more…

A. (Dialogue between Husband & Wife in front of the policeman and the doctor)

Husband: A unicorn is a mythical beast.

Wife: I'm not crazy! you're the crazy one!!  I was sleeping when you woke me  

             up and told me that crazy story!!

Husband: Honey, I haven't been in the bedroom since early this morning. 

                     Maybe you dreamed about it.

Wife: What are you saying!? You woke me up twice today!! You said that 

       the unicorn had eaten a flower!!

Husband: Darling, that's impossible! Did you take your pills last night?

Wife: What pills? I don't take pills any more. You are the one who

            takes pills!

Husband: oh, that's why; you have forgotten to take the pills...

(The doctor and the policeman take the woman inside the ambulance and put her a straitjacket. She shouts. He smiles)           (by Jerónimo & Ezequiel)

Another one...

B. Wife: Doctor, I think my husband is crazy because this morning he told me that he had seen a little unicorn in the garden and I´m really worried about that.

Doctor: Has this ever happened before?

Wife: No, never, it´s the first time.

Policeman: I suppose that something strange is happening here, I think the doctor needs to talk with your husband.

Wife: Honey, can you come here please? There are some friends here who want

to ask you some questions.

Husband: What´s going on? Who are these people?

Doctor: Your wife told us that you had see an unicorn this morning, is it that

                  true?

Policeman: Did you take any drugs or alcohol this morning?

Husband: Of course not, I´m a healthy person, maybe you have to ask to my wife. Every morning she adds some vodka to her the coffee.

Wife: Of course not, he is lying; tell the doctor what you told me before.

Policeman: I can smell your breath, you have to come with me to the police

station.

Doctor: We need to run some psychiatrist tests.      (Lilian, Alfredo & Julián)

Dialogues we created with prompts from the videoclip

We connected the topic to different materials. Among them, we worked with Everybody Hurts by R.E.M

These are some of the dialogues we created with promps from the videoclip (marked here in bold type).  

1) At the cinema:

-She: Look at that girl, she´s using her mobile phone and we’re in the middle of the film. Maybe she doesn´t know that silence is golden.

-He: What do you want me to do? There´s nothing I can do.

-She: You have to do something!

-He: If I had a gun, I would kill that girl.

-She: Oh no, you´re crazy! I was thinking of throwing something, nobody can see you. What can I throw?

-He: I have no idea.

-She: I´ll throw her some popcorn.

(The girl throws the popcorn and it hits the woman´s head. The woman stands up and looks at the couple, she gets angry and shouts: “I´ll talk when I want to, I´m going to complain with the manager”. Finally, she’s gone.   (by Julián and Alfredo)

2) There's nothing I can do, I need to make some changes in my life but I'm feeling depressed. All my friends have given me advice but I have no idea, How am I gonna do this?
She's gone and nobody can bring her back. At this moment, I think that silence is golden, I don't want to talk with anyone, even my friends.
If I had a gun I would kill her and her new boyfriend when nobody can see me…  (by Matías & Sergio)

Peter Gabriel's song Don’t give up

This lead us to Peter Gabriel's song Don’t give up