what is the blues? (garrison keillor)

What is the blues?

Literary Concepts

• Characterization: how an author creates a character

Literary Concepts

• Characterization: how an author creates a character

• Characterization: how an author creates a character

This includes a character’s: • personality• background• ideas about life

Literary Concepts

• Mood: the emotional feeling of a work of literature

Literary Concepts

• Mood: the emotional feeling of a work of literature

This can be made by:• the setting• the characters• the tone

Literary Concepts

• Narrator: the speaker in a story

This can be:• someone who takes part in the story• someone who isn’t in the story, but just

reports about it

Vocabulary:

The BluesThe blues applies to both a type of mood and a

type of music

Vocabulary:

The BluesThe blues applies to both a type of mood and a

type of music• To say that you “have the blues” means that

you’re sad

Vocabulary:

The BluesThe blues applies to both a type of mood and a

type of music• To say that you “have the blues” means that

you’re sad• Blues music is sad, slow, thoughtful, often

about looking back at something sad that happened

Vocabulary:flush

“I had just won $23,000 and I was feeling flush”

flush= overflowing, well-supplied

Vocabulary:rare hamburger

Vocabulary:Raw egg yolk

Vocabulary:china cup

Vocabulary:deck of cards

Vocabulary:pool cue

Vocabulary:gamble

to risk money, or anything of value, on something involving chance

Vocabulary:gamble

to risk money, or anything of value, on the outcome of something involving chance• Card games like Poker, Baseball Poker,

or Roll ‘Em• Or playing pool

Vocabulary:water pump

Vocabulary:ballroom

Vocabulary:‘57 Chevy

Vocabulary:Justice of the Peace

A judge who can marry people

Vocabulary:cornfield

Vocabulary:diamond

Vocabulary:peanut

Vocabulary:to fetch:

to go get, retrieve

Vocabulary:bullfrog

Vocabulary:semi

Vocabulary:high beams

Places:

Tupelo, Mississippi

Places:

Tupelo, Mississippi

Places:

St.Paul, Misnnesota

Places:

St.Paul, Misnnesota

Places:

Iowa

What is the blues?

by Garrison Keillor

People ask me what is the blues, I say the blues is a woman you cannot have.

I met her in Tupelo, Mississippi, at a dance, she was wearing a red dress and waiting for

someone but we leaned up against my car and talked. It was August. Her name was Francine.

She was so beautiful I knew I didn't stand a chance with her and yet there we were,

talking. I asked if she was hungry and she was so we went to a joint called Mom's and she ordered a salad, dressing on the side, and I

ordered a hamburger, rare, with a raw onion and mustard. And a glass of gin and a raw egg

yolk in a china cup with plenty of pepper.

I was earning my living with a deck of cards and a pool cue back then and I had just won $23,000 in a game of Roll Em so I was feeling

flush. I tossed back the raw egg, chased it with gin, took a bite of the hamburger. Francine

said, "What's your name?" "My name's Buddy," I said.

"Where you going, Buddy? Soon as you finish that hamburger." I said, "I have no idea. I am a free man." She said, "I want to go be free with you." She said, "I never did anything like this

before." I said, "Neither did I."

Francine and I got into my 57 Chevy and we headed north toward St. Paul. It was August, it was hot. We drove all day and by nightfall Francine had her head on my shoulder and her hand on my knee and the 57 Chevy was starting to boil over and we

pulled into a garage called Mike's next to a ballroom called the Moonlight Club and I told Mike to check the water pump and Francine and I took a

stroll next door to the Moonlight Club and we proceeded to dance, real close, her arms around

my neck, saying sweet things I could hardly believe.

We left the Moonlight Club, arm in arm, and got in the 57 Chevy and headed for St. Paul, and five hundred miles later I said to her, "Would

you like to go find a justice of the peace and get married in the morning?" She was thinking this over and then she let out a yell and she says, "I forgot my favorite lipstick in the ladies' lounge. Shameless Crimson. I can't do without it. We gotta go back, Buddy. Please. Turn around."

I said, "Francine, I'll buy you a new lipstick in St. Paul." She said, "I pretty much like that

Shameless Crimson." I said, "Francine, I would do anything for you but I am not going to turn

around and drive 500 miles in the wrong direction for a lipstick." And she says, "All

right, then let me off right here." And I pulled over on the side of the road. She was a girl who knew her own mind. I like that usually

but not right then.

I pull over there beside a cornfield in Iowa and crickets chirping and off in the distance a train whistle calls out and she says, "Buddy, if you love me, you'll go back to the Moonlight Club

for that Shameless Crimson lipstick that means so much to me. A man should do anything for

the woman he loves."

And I look out across the field and I say, "Francine, I will buy you a diamond the size of a peanut and marry you forever and we'll live in a house with white columns in front and a swimming pool behind, but I will not go fetch your lipstick. A man does that and pretty soon he is free no longer, and it was freedom that first drew you to me, if I am not mistaken."

I sat there smelling the corn and the new mown hay, and all the goodness of life, but

when she opened the door on the passenger side and stepped out on the gravel, I couldn't do a thing about it. I could hear a bullfrog say, "Go back and get it, go back and get it," but I

couldn't.

She said, "Buddy, I am crazy nuts about you but I could never live with a man who

wouldn't go against his principles as a favor to a lady." And she walked away. I heard her footsteps on the gravel and I saw the semi

coming and he put on his high beams and hit his brakes and he stopped and opened the door and she got in and he took her away.

I drove to St. Paul and got in a game of baseball poker and in two hours I had lost the twenty three grand and the 57 Chevy, all I had was enough to buy me a hamburger, rare, with a raw onion, some mustard, a glass of gin, and a raw egg yolk in a china cup, and I looked in my shirt pocket for a smoke and there in the

pocket was a tube of Shameless Crimson lipstick.

And suddenly I could feel her arms around me and smell her perfume and feel her lips on my

ear as she whispered things no woman had ever said to me before and nobody ever would

again.

People ask me what is the blues, that is the blues right there.

Questions

• How would you describe this narrator? • Why do you think the author included such a weird

meal? (“I ordered a hamburger, rare, with a raw onion and mustard. And a glass of gin and a raw egg yolk in a china cup with plenty of pepper.”)

• What do we know about this character through his gambling?

• Why would Buddy not go back for the lipstick?• Why did Francine leave?

Literary Concepts

• Characterization: how an author creates a character

• Characterization: how an author creates a character

This includes a character’s: • personality• background• ideas about life

Literary Concepts

• Mood: the emotional feeling of a work of literature

This can be made by:• the setting• the characters• the tone

Questions

• What would you say about the mood of this story?

• How did the title reflect the mood? • What particular part of this story adds to the

mood the most, for you? • How did the music add to the mood?