Critical thinking of the text "The Stub Book"

 

Examine the text, The Stub-Book, from the perspective of a critical thinker.

Written by Spanish writer Pedro Antonio de Alarcon (1833-1891), the story “The stub-Book” deals with the dedicated and hardworking farmers of Rota. Though the story has a simple plot and theme but the subject it conveys is unpredictable. As the story falls under the category of critical and creative thinking we really need to think out of the box to properly analyze the whole story.

The story beings with the description of Rota, the smallest town in the bay of Cadiz. Initially, writer has presented the historical and architectural significance of the place while later on the writer turns his focus to the main character of the story, Uncle Buscabeatas. Here the writers technique of writing has lost the track and completely defocused what’s important resulting in shrinking of description of the main essence of the story. The author here presents the descriptive method of writing in such a way that a picture is formed in the reader's mind making it more interesting and engaging to read. He has depicted the intimacy of the farmers with their vegetables. The writer is also trying to evoke the readers’ pathos showing the deep affection of old man towards his dearest pumpkins. Furthermore, sentimental monologue of Uncle Buscabeatas depicts what he had undergone when the pumpkins, which he had taken care of like a child were robbed. But after the robbery of those pumpkins he never let his emotions to flatter out rather he was calculative to his action. The writer characterizes Uncle Buscabeatas as a creative thinker as he was not driven by the emotions rather he was fully aware of what he was doing.

The contradictory scene of the old man accusing the vendor in Cadiz has shown a kind of fallacy of the old man which might had also smeared his reputation. Ironically, despite being flawed, this ad hominem argument gathered the attention of the policeman and the audience. While the another biased statement from the policemen “Men should not insult each other like that”, also creates the controversy looking from the feminist perspective. The writer has used the phrase “Needless to say” but he was trying to tell something which shows that the writer’s imprudent behavior as he is trying to exaggerate seemingly unimportant matters.

In a nutshell, despite the plot of the story has risen to the level of complexity, this has helped to stimulate the imagination making one able to explore additional thoughts to connect one idea to another—especially to seemingly unrelated ideas.