Work Sheet: Sheila’s Chance

Expected Answers


I. Questions on the text:

Answer the following questions on the text. Keep to the direct and indirect information contained in the text, but use your own words as far as possible.


1) Briefly describe the steps in Sheila’s career (positions with responsibilities and relevant professional achievements)

➢ four years of college

➢ promising newscaster for a major-market radio station

➢ reporter for TV station

➢ covering local stories

➢ several of her local stories made the national news

➢ job at a TV network

➢ TV reporter

➢ Ready to become a correspondent

10 BE


2) Explain the reason(s) for Sheila’s success in her career:

a. What was Beau’s contribution?

➢ Used his connections to get her an audition

➢ Gave her tips for good stories

➢ Advised her on behavior (no prima-donna behavior)

[10 BE]

b. What could and did she do herself ?

➢ Hard work

➢ Late working hours (midnight calls)

➢ Cultivated her sources

➢ Determination in her job (“ intended to make it”; “ with the determination of a mountain climber”)

➢ Perfect/right behavior on the job (no prima donna; “the good soldier, took orders..” = good team spirit)

➢ Natural talent (“she was cut from good journalistic cloth”) [20 BE]

c. To what extent do you think Dan Whittle was indirectly responsible for her success in her career? (Use your background knowledge.)

➢ He had humiliated her when he called her dumb

➢ He threw her out of his apartment, because she had not learned anything and was not interesting for a man in the long run

➢ She may have wanted to prove him wrong and show him that she could become successful in her own right

➢ She may have wanted to take revenge ( as a journalist) [10 BE] 40 BE



3) Analyze Sheila’s character as it is reflected in her behavior and thoughts when she met Dan Whittle again. (Her feelings; the image she wants to convey of herself to her ex-lover; her probable intentions?)

➢ she still felt great pain (had been terribly hurt when he threw her out)

➢ she quickly changed her appearance in the toilet from business woman to seductive woman

➢ underlined her femininity:

➢ fresh lipstick;

➢ revealed part of her cleavage (opened two buttons)

➢ let her hair down (=more feminine)

➢ at the same time: the image of the journalist/the professional wielding power of her own, working for a big media corporation

➢ her intentions [possible suggestions]:

➢ to test her sexual power over him (she counted how often he “glanced at her tits”]

➢ maybe she wanted to win him back

➢ maybe she just wanted to impress him [her media power]

➢ maybe she wanted to take revenge:

➢ get him again and then ditch him;

➢ or to use her media power to hurt his career

20 BE

4) Briefly characterize the type of narrator in this passage. Illustrate your findings with reference to the text.

➢ observer (no narrator-agent; he is not involved in the events he describes; he looks at them from the outside, but also into their minds)

➢ omniscient ( he seems to know everything: e. g. what the different figures in the novel think and feel [How Beau felt about her; how she felt about him; what Sheila felt towards Dan etc]

➢ reliable (he guides the readers with his comments) 10 BE