"The Ant and the Grasshopper"

     Do you think the message in Maugham's story is the same as or different from the message in the Aesop fable of the ant and the grasshopper? Explain.

     The original "Ant and the Grasshopper" from Aesop is clearly different from the modern version. In the original story, the hardworking character was rewarded and the idle one was punished. In contrast, the newer version from W. Somerset Maugham has a quite different meaning. Both characters had the same features, but at the end of the story the winner was Tom, who represented the grasshopper. Tom didn't work as George did, but he used his charm to get a lot of things in his life, including a great fortune. He enjoyed his life while his brother George worked. This one is a more realistic story that shows the unfairness on this world. Not always the good person wins; nowadays the bad is barely punished.

The friendship bond

Questions 1-6

1- The social critics were expecting people to be unhappy with their friendship because according to research people choose to live alone. Also the lack of commitment and high mobility rate which leads to problems in the friendships.according to the survey people answered that their relationships are reciprocal, At least in America friendships appears to be in good shape.

2- The reading mention five qualities that are important in a friend: loyalty, ability to keep confidences and secrets, warmth, to show affection and supportiveness. That looks like a good order of importance since localty is what keeps a friendship alive.

3-  They mention two reasons to end a friendship: being lied by a friend and having different point of view on something significant for your friend. The one that makes more sense is being betrayed or lied, while having a different opinion on something can be more easily fixed by talking with that person.

4- The three main activities that can be found between friends are: having intimate talk, helping out a friend and turning to a friend for help. Trust is the most important thing if we want to share anything with another person. We won't tell personal things or even ask for help if we don't really trust that person.

5- The first rule on a friendship is that friends confide each other's feelings and the second one is that we have the right to ask for help. I think it depends which kind of friend we are talking about because I don't tell things to any person that comes to me. There are things also that maybe only one person in my life deserves to know.

6- The limits to a friendship is when one of the individuals commits negative actions that could put in danger the other person.