The Scarlatti Tilt

Response to ORIGINAL 

The original wording, “It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin. That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver" seems to be vague. The author foreshadowed the reader the events that is going to happen or has happened in the story.

Response to DIFFERENT VARIATIONS 

I feel that the variations of this text conjures different feelings in a certain way. For example:

Variation #1:
The change of noun from "man" to a "white man" makes me think that the woman who handed the police the empty revolver is the bad person. However, my friend has another viewpoint. She thinks that the white man is the bad person because he has been racist towards the woman all along until the point that the woman cannot stand his actions so she killed him.

Variation #2:
The change of noun from "man" to "black man" makes me think that the woman is not the bad guy as she was with the white man's case. In this case, the woman is not wrong because my initial feeling of black people is that they are always wrong and usually the "bad guy". I think that this feeling is very surprising of how I judge people from their race. On the other hand, my friend thinks that the woman is wrong because she is racist towards the black man. Therefore, she is always annoyed of what the black man does and this leads her to murder him.

Variation #3:
The change of noun from "man" to "woman" for the violin player and the change of "woman" to "man" for the killer makes me think that the man who killed the woman is wrong. This is because I feel that contemporary men should have sympathy towards women (weaker sex), and therefore should treat women in a passionate way.

Variation #4:
The change of noun from "man" to "children" for the violin player automatically makes the killer the corrupted and wrong. I believe that children are never wrong because they are still young and naive while adults are old enough to handle their emotions and feelings.

Variation #5:
The change of noun from "man" to "baby" have the same effect as variation #4. It is normal for babies to cry and I would rather view that the killer is very ill-tempered or even mentally ill to the point that he killed the baby.

Variation #6:
The change of the killer from "man" to "woman" have the same effect as variation #5. Anyone who killed a baby because of their cry is mentally ill.

Variation #7:
This variation makes me feel that the woman who killed the man that watches football all the time is biased because she does not like Manchester United while the man might like the team. I feel that this is very common in society but I still think that the woman is the immoral person. She should not let her feelings overcome the idea of self-righteous.