The story opens with the description of a riverbed in rural California, a beautiful, wooded area at the base of “golden foothill slopes.” A path runs to the river, used by boys going swimming and riffraff coming down from the highway. Two men walk along the path. The first, George, is small, wiry, and sharp-featured, while his companion, Lennie, is large and awkward. They are both dressed in denim, farmhand attire.
As they reach a clearing, Lennie stops to drink from the river, and George warns him not to drink too much or he will get sick, as he did the night before. As their conversation continues, it becomes clear that the larger man has a mild mental disability, and that his companion looks out for his safety. George begins to complain about the bus driver who dropped them off a long way from their intended destination—a ranch on which they are due to begin work. Lennie interrupts him to ask where they are going. His companion impatiently reminds him of their movements over the past few days, and then notices that Lennie is holding a dead mouse. George takes it away from him. Lennie insists that he is not responsible for killing the mouse, that he just wanted to pet it, but George loses his temper and throws it across the stream. George warns Lennie that they are going to work on a ranch, and that he must behave himself when they meet the boss. George does not want any trouble of the kind they encountered in Weed, the last place they worked.
George decides that they will stay in the clearing for the night, and as they prepare their bean supper, Lennie crosses the stream and recovers the mouse, only to have George find him out immediately and take the mouse away again. Apparently, Lennie’s Aunt Clara used to give him mice to pet, but he tends to “break” small creatures unintentionally when he shows his affection for them, killing them because he doesn’t know his own strength. As the two men sit down to eat, Lennie asks for ketchup. This request launches George into a long speech about Lennie’s ungratefulness. George complains that he could get along much better if he didn’t have to care for Lennie. He uses the incident that got them chased out of Weed as a case in point. Lennie, a lover of soft things, stroked the fabric of a girl’s dress, and would not let go. The locals assumed he assaulted her, and ran them out of town.
Tolstoy's novel and Munch's painting show the darkness hidden within everyday life. Ivan Ilych was a mediocre man until his sickness forces him to reckon with his mortality. His story shows that people go through life pretending that they will not die, and that knowledge of death can make all the petty distractions of life meaningless. In Munch's painting, the screaming figure can be read as experiencing a devastating realization. Perhaps he is just know admitting to himself that he will die. Both works show emotional challenges that humans face, though other options are also valid: one could argue that they show the artists’ struggle with the concept of the afterlife and, at the same time, that they are a celebration of human life and spirituality. Even though the story makes no promises regarding what will come after, Ivan Ilych gains a greater spiritual insight through his ordeal. Facing death both shows the limits and the possibilities of human life.
Answer: B. He thinks the request shows Yun Ok's foolishness.
The hermit thinks the request shows Yun Ok's foolishness because her husband's condition is not like a disease or illness which can be cured by a potion or medicine. The truth is, she doesn't need any potions, amulets, drinks, or medicines just to bring back her husband to his old self again. The hermit wants to show to Yun Ok that she only need tolerant and gentle care to change her husband.
Dramatic Irony is a situation in a drama wherein the characters in the play cannot grasp what's happening, but the audience can already understand what is going to happen and understood what has happened. So the answer is, Audience knows something the characters don't know.
