Literary Analysis: “An Earful” Literary Analysis: “An Earful” By VSA 4th Grader Have you ever been stressed out about homework? Jacob, the main character in An Earful, by Dale-Marie Bryan, gets stressed out about homework even though Jacob just had to look at in a different point of view. At the beginning, Jacob is very grumpy about his homework about finding noises, but throughout the story, he realizes that there may be more sounds than he thinks. Jacob wasn’t thinking about everything before he started making accusations. This affected how he thought about his homework. At first, Jacob felt very mad about his homework. His teacher gives the whole class homework, which is to find as many sounds as they can. She says that the person who gets a bunch of sounds will get a blue kazoo. Everybody in the class erupts into laughter, but not Jacob. Jacob thinks that there are more sounds in the city than on the farm where he lives. Jacob believes it is not fair. He believes that there are very little sounds on the farm he lives on. Jacob believes the city has way more noises. Because of his thoughts, Jacob objects that the farm even has any noise, except for talking. Throughout the day, Jacob still feels grumpy, even though there are constantly noises around him. His cloud of sadness is still over him when he gets off of the bus. Jacob doesn’t even wave goodbye! On the porch, there were a lot of kittens. “They sounded like tiny motors when they purred,” he thought. Jacob doesn’t realize that the kittens are noises he can add to his list. Then when he enters the house, he hears a creaking rocker. Then, Jacob has a snack before he starts his chores. “If only these cookies could come to life,” Jacob said as he was eating them, although he had a lot of sounds on the farm already. He thought that if the animals crackers could come to life, he would have a ton of noises to document. He just didn’t want to think about the animals that are already on his farm. Jacob has a collie, Golden. She woofed at him when he walked by. Her little puppies are yipping, making a really loud noise. Jacob still does not notice. At the end of the book, Jacob realizes that he actually has more sounds on the farm than he thinks. Jacob is still finishing his chores, and he put chicken eggs into his pocket. Then he feeds the cow some corn. He sees his dad’s tractor with his dad riding on it. Jacob is still in a grumpy mood. He then puts the eggs onto the dining table and goes to the treehouse. The bluejays sing, the sparrows chatter, and the bees buzzed in their beehives. These noises only made Jacob even more irritated, although he can add them to his list of noises. “QUIET!” Jacob shouted. This is when he realizes that there ARE a lot of noises on the farm. He just had never taken the time to notice because he got very wound up in his own grumpy mood that he didn’t notice all the sounds. Jacob writes, because he has a mountain of homework to do! Although in the beginning, Jacob was really grumpy about his homework, he becomes more and more aware of the surrounding noises. Throughout the story, his mood also changes, from grumpy to positive. He also changes the way he thinks about the farm. His attitude towards other people also changes. In the beginning, he doesn’t care to wave at the school bus, but he likes his homework at the end. Your mood can change the way you think and your perspective of the world. Whether you choose to be happy or mad, it will affect your day.
