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Orozco, Josephine

Raipan, Rochelle

Tan, Julie MarieLit21 G

Title of the Selection: Dead Stars

Strategy: Reader Response InterpretationAlthough experiencing love should bring someone sheer happiness, Alfredos experience had only been sad. As what is stated in the story, Sitting quietly in his room, now he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it, someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza. As readers, we can see in Alfredo that humans can be careless at choosing relationships due to hastiness desire to experience love and desire to hold on all the enjoyment it could give. We choose a person so quickly without analyzing if we really love them and will be happy with them for the rest of our lives. We can only wish that we could bring back our youth but we realize that we only have one life to spend and see that time is running so fast and we are being left behind.

Also, Alfredos experience of love is sad because he learned to lie towards Esperanza by covering up the things he did the past few days and that he was offering something to Julia which is forbidden. As stated in the story, That half-lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on. This arises a feeling of mixed emotions: anger, sympathy and betrayal from us. We are angered by the thought of Alfredo lying to Esperanza. However, we sympathize Alfredo because lying to the person you care about is not easy. Lastly, if we were in Esperanzas shoes, Alfredos betrayal would lose our trust. If you mean you want to take back your word, if you are tired of why dont you tell me you are tired of me? was said by Esperanza to Alfredo in one of their arguments. As readers, we felt the pain of Esperanza and strength because she still managed to give Alfredo a way out of their engagement. Yet, he did not take it for fear of what people would say. It goes to show how selfish, coward and weak Alfredo is.

In the final stanza, An immense sadness as of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth., shows how Alfredo realized that his affection for Julia is just for a short time that he just like his youth and that he only finds Julia a total opposite of himself. We can say that Alfredo had wasted his life regretting things not worth regretting. Thus, making this the third reason why Alfredos experience of love is sad. Alfredo has been clinging onto something that is unattainable because he is bored with his life. For us, holding onto something you cant have forgo the future possibilities of happiness and contentment. It is not wise to leave present things unspoken. It will only result to a life full of what ifs.