Saturday, February 19, 2011

Washington Irving / The Adventure of the German Student


Photography by Anja Millen


THE ADVENTURE
OF THE GERMAN STUDENT
By Washington Irving

In a stormy night, in the tempestuous times of the French Revolution, a young German was returning to his lodgings, at a late hour, across the old part of Paris. The lightning gleamed, and the loud claps of thunder rattled through the lofty narrow streets—but I should first tell you something about this young German.
          Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Göttingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body. His health was impaired; his imagination diseased. He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until, like Swedenborg, he had an ideal world of his own around him. He took up a notion, I do not know from what cause, that there was an evil influence hanging over him; an evil genius or spirit seeking to ensnare him and ensure his perdition. Such an idea working on his melancholy temperament produced the most gloomy effects. He became haggard and desponding. His friends discovered the mental malady preying upon him, and determined that the best cure was a change of scene; he was sent, therefore, to finish his studies amidst the splendors and gayeties of Paris.
          Wolfgang arrived at Paris at the breaking out of the revolution. The popular delirium at first caught his enthusiastic mind, and he was captivated by the political and philosophical theories of the day: but the scenes of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature, disgusted him with society and the world, and made him more than ever a recluse. He shut himself up in a solitary apartment in the Pays Latin, the quarter of students. There, in a gloomy street not far from the monastic walls of the Sorbonne, he pursued his favorite speculations. Sometimes he spend hours together in the great libraries of Paris, those catacombs of departed authors, rummaging among their hoards of dusty and obsolete works in quest of food for his unhealthy appetite. He was, in a manner, a literary ghoul, feeding in the charnel-house of decayed literature.
          Wolfgang, though solitary and recluse, was of an ardent temperament, but for a time it operated merely upon his imagination. He was too shy and ignorant of the world to make any advances to the fair, but he was a passionate admirer of female beauty, and in his lonely chamber would often lose himself in reveries on forms and faces which he had seen, and his fancy would deck out images of loveliness far surpassing the reality.
          While his mind was in this excited and sublimated state, a dream produced an extraordinary effect upon him. It was of a female face of transcendent beauty. So strong was the impression made, that he dreamt of it again and again. It haunted his thoughts by day, his slumbers by night; in fine, he became passionately enamoured of this shadow of a dream. This lasted so long that it became one of those fixed ideas which haunt the minds of melancholy men, and are at times mistaken for madness.
          Such was Gottfried Wolfgang, and such his situation at the time I mentioned. He was returning home late on stormy night, through some of the old and gloomy streets of the Marais, the ancient part of Paris. The loud claps of thunder rattled among the high houses of the narrow streets. He came to the Place de Grève, the square where public executions are performed. The lightning quivered about the pinnacles of the ancient Hôtel de Ville, and shed flickering gleams over the open space in front. As Wolfgang was crossing the square, he shrank back with horror at finding himself close by the guillotine. It was the height of the reign of terror, when this dreadful instrument of death stood ever ready, and its scaffold was continually running with the blood of the virtuous and the brave. It had that very day been actively employed in the work of carnage, and there it stood in grim array, amidst a silent and sleeping city, waiting for fresh victims.
          Wolfgang's heart sickened within him, and he was turning shuddering from the horrible engine, when he beheld a shadowy form, cowering as it were at the foot of the steps which led up to the scaffold. A succession of vivid flashes of lightning revealed it more distinctly. It was a female figure, dressed in black. She was seated on one of the lower steps of the scaffold, leaning forward, her face hid in her lap; and her long dishevelled tresses hanging to the ground, streaming with the rain which fell in torrents. Wolfgang paused. There was something awful in this solitary monument of woe. The female had the appearance of being above the common order. He knew the times to be full of vicissitude, and that many a fair head, which had once been pillowed on down, now wandered houseless. Perhaps this was some poor mourner whom the dreadful axe had rendered desolate, and who sat here heart-broken on the strand of existence, from which all that was dear to her had been launched into eternity.
          He approached, and addressed her in the accents of sympathy. She raised her head and gazed wildly at him. What was his astonishment at beholding, by the bright glare of the lighting, the very face which had haunted him in his dreams. It was pale and disconsolate, but ravishingly beautiful.
          Trembling with violent and conflicting emotions, Wolfgang again accosted her. He spoke something of her being exposed at such an hour of the night, and to the fury of such a storm, and offered to conduct her to her friends. She pointed to the guillotine with a gesture of dreadful signification.
           "I have no friend on earth!" said she.
           "But you have a home," said Wolfgang.
           "Yes -in the grave!"
          The heart of the student melted at the words.
      "If a stranger dare make an offer," said he, "without danger of being misunderstood, I would offer my humble dwelling as a shelter; myself as a devoted friend. I am friendless myself in Paris, and a stranger in the land; but if my life could be of service, it is at your disposal, and should be sacrificed before harm or indignity should come to you."
        There was an honest earnestness in the young man's manner that had its effect. His foreign accent, too, was in his favor; it showed him not to be a hackneyed inhabitant of Paris. Indeed, there is eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted. The homeless stranger confided herself implicitly to the protection of the student.
         He supported her faltering steps across the Pont Neuf, and by the place where the statue of Henry the Fourth had been overthrown by the populace. The storm had abated, and the thunder rumbled at a distance. All Paris was quiet; that great volcano of human passion slumbered for a while, to gather fresh strength for the next day's eruption. The student conducted his charge through the ancient streets of the Pays Latin, and by the dusky walls of the Sorbonne, to the great dingy hotel which he inhabited. The old porter who admitted them stared with surprise at the unusual sight of the melancholy Wolfgang, with a female companion.
On entering his apartment, the student, for the first time, blushed at the scantiness and indifference of his dwelling. He had but one chamber—an old-fashioned saloon—heavily carved, and fantastically furnished with the remains of former magnificence, for it was one of those hotels in the quarter of the Luxembourg palace, which had once belonged to nobility. It was lumbered with books and papers, and all the usual apparatus of a student, and his bed stood in a recess at one end.
         When lights were brought, and Wolfgang had a better opportunity of contemplating the stranger, he was more than ever intoxicated by her beauty. Her face was pale, but of a dazzling fairness, set off by a profusion of raven hair that hung clustering about it. Her eyes were large and brilliant, with a singular expression approaching almost to wildness. As far as her black dress permitted her shape to be seen, it was of perfect symmetry. Her whole appearance was highly striking, though she was dressed in the simplest style. The only thing approaching to an ornament which she wore, was a broad black band round her neck, clasped by diamonds.
          The perplexity now commenced with the student how to dispose of the helpless being thus thrown upon his protection. He thought of abandoning his chamber to her, and seeking shelter for himself elsewhere. Still, he was so fascinated by her charms, there seemed to be such a spell upon his thoughts and senses, that he could not tear himself from her presence. Her manner, too, was singular and unaccountable. She spoke no more of the guillotine. Her grief had abated. The attentions of the student had first won her confidence, and then, apparently, her heart. She was evidently an enthusiast like himself, and enthusiasts soon understand each other.
          In the infatuation of the moment, Wolfgang avowed his passion for her. He told her the story of his mysterious dream, and how she had possessed his heart before he had even seen her. She was strangely affected by his recital, and acknowledged to have felt an impulse towards him equally unaccountable. It was the time for wild theory and wild actions. Old prejudices and superstitions were done away; everything was under the sway of the "Goddess of Reason." Among other rubbish of the old times, the forms and ceremonies of marriage began to be considered superfluous bonds for honorable minds. Social compacts were the vogue. Wolfgang was too much of theorist not to be tainted by the liberal doctrines of the day.
          "Why should we separate?" said he: "our hearts are united; in the eye of reason and honor we are as one. What need is there of sordid forms to bind high souls together?"
          The stranger listened with emotion: she had evidently received illumination at the same school.
          "You have no home or family," continued he: "let me be everything to you, or rather let us be everything to one another. If form is necessary, form shall be observed—there is my hand. I pledge myself to you forever."
          "Forever?" said the stranger, solemnly.
          "Forever!" repeated Wolfgang.
          The stranger clasped the hand extended to her: "Then I am yours," murmured she, and sank upon his bosom.
         The next morning the student left his bride sleeping, and sallied forth at an early hour to seek more spacious apartments suitable to the change in his situation. When he returned, he found the stranger lying with her head hanging over the bed, and one arm thrown over it. He spoke to her, but received no reply. He advanced to awaken her from her uneasy posture. On taking her hand, it was cold—there was no pulsation—her face was pallid and ghastly. In a word, she was a corpse.
           Horrified and frantic, he alarmed the house. A scene of confusion ensued. The police was summoned. As the officer of police entered the room, he started back on beholding the corpse.
          "Great heaven!" cried he, "how did this woman come here?"
          "Do you know anything about her?" said Wolfgang eagerly.
         "Do I?" exclaimed the officer: "she was guillotined yesterday."
          He stepped forward; undid the black collar round the neck of the corpse, and the head rolled on the floor!
          The student burst into a frenzy. "The fiend! The fiend has gained possession of me!" shrieked he; "I am lost forever."
          They tried to soothe him, but in vain. He was possessed with the frighful belief that an evil spirit had reanimated the dead body to ensnare him. He went distracted, and died in a mad-house.
         Here the old gentleman with the haunted head finished his narrative.
         "And is this really a fact?" said the inquisitive gentleman.
          "A fact not to be doubted," replied the other. "I had it from the best authority. The student told it me himself. I saw him in a mad-house in Paris."        
      

  




118 comments:

  1. When I read the title, I thought the story was going to be about an adventurer boy who had his hobbies, excited moments in his common life but I never thought it was going to be about a horror tale.
    On the other hand, talking about the content of this short story, it was quite interesting to see how the narrator described every single moment with details, even though he described the atmospheric events and such was the description he did that it made me live the tale as if I were in that right place.
    Finally, another event that caught my attention was when Wolfgang realized that his unique perfect love became into that evil spirit he was escaping from and it drove him mad.

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  2. To start my review I must say I feel a fascination for mystery stories, and I never imagined that this was one of them. When I read the title, I did not guess that the history was about a horror experience of a student, and less than the main scene would develop in Paris. If you think about the title, you might imagine some adventures with a crazy teenage boy in a college surrounded by girls and lot of parties, but the nice thing about this story is that it gives an unexpected turn and moves to Paris where the most attractive events happened.
    The scene of the corpse really mixed and confused my mind, though at one instant of the story, she pointed to the guillotine but later it was forgotten, and It was one of the most exciting scenes. After that, everything happened so fast that I do not know in what moment the narrator tells us that Gottfried died in a mental hospital because he did not withstand this event.
    I loved the end, as it should be all the horror stories, and it leaves a big question to continue the story in our minds.
    In addition, to end my comment I mean that it made me think that never is too late to meet or to know a person, which we want to spend the rest of our life, even in the imagination.
    By Marcela Meneses

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  3. Paranormal stories have always been one of my favorite literary genders, it's quite strange because this kind of stories get me scared, but at the same time i enjoy the feeling.
    No sooner i began reading the first line of the story when i realized that this story wouldn't have a happy ending because of the description of that night in paris.
    On the other hand was wee bit strange to hear that kind of stories took place in Paris, because Paris for me it's the most beautiful and romantic place in the world and knowing this new side of Paris was really interesting.
    The German student wrote by Washington Irving is a clear example of good literature, it's amazing how human imagination don't have limits and
    how we let us take by the story.
    the story's subject is an example of how strange ideas and doctrines can be a big influence in human's mind, so much so that they create their own world inside them and in that way forgetting the real life.
    The power of human mind can be dangerous when we lose control, and sometimes by a single act we make and we think is harmless, can be harmful for other people, but this happen only when people lose control. In the case of Irving's story, the main character lose his mind living in a fantastic place where that woman was alive, but in the "real world", she was dead and then, he just saw the woman of his dreams face in the woman's dead body.When the police found it lying in his bed, was such a surprise because sane people doesn't use to carry dead people into their houses.
    Yaneth Rocio Vera Rincon

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  5. Foremost I want to say that when I read the title of the story, two different ideas came to my mind about facts that would happen in the story: first I thought that the story was about a student that he liked to travel, and the narrator would tell the adventures that he had lived in every trip. Second I thought that it was about a student that he had different girlfriends, and in story he would tell about the moments that he had lived with every one girl but, my thoughts were really very far from the happened in the story. Without doubt the history is captivating, fascinating and terrifying enough.

    In the story I could see how Irving wrote a story of fiction with real places and moments as Göttingen (A college town in the middle of Germany), Sorbonne , Marais, Lugar de Graeve, Hôtel de Ville(ancient places of French) and the French revolution (1789–1799) was a epoch of political and social disturbance in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, lived radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights.

    Irving tells the story of a German young person who by his crazy actions was sent to Paris, which it was not a good idea because, due to the problems that in this moment France was living the young got worse, which did that he was submerging in books and dreams of beautiful women getting obsessed with one of them. And probably what really I happened with this young was that the imagination played him a dirty trick and if it was not, I think that what happened him can become crazy until most sane person.

    In this story the part most overawed was when the narrator said that he returned to the apartment and he saw the woman was lying down in the bed with his hands unhooked; in this moment I thought that she had commit suicide and what she had lived with the student the last night it was a farewell to the life, but, when I read that the policeman said to him about the woman, it made me shiver on my body and even more when I read that the policeman take from her the hatband of her neck and the head rolled !huy! My god, I was stunned. Terrible............
    by Veronica mayorga

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  6. COMMENT
    First at all when I read the title “the adventure of the German student” what comes to my mind was the story of a person who lived many exciting experiences with his best friends. But then when I began to read the first part of it I realized that it wasn’t so amazing as I thought and I understood that the story would be about mysterious moments lived by the main character.
    As a second aspect was the context in which the narrator was situated, it means the French Revolution is related with the German’s student superstitions had because at this moment as we know in France was passing for a great revolt, and one of the terms used in the story, guillotined is an evident comparison between the event and the German fairs.
    Although I don’t like blood stories some3thing that caught my attention was the failure that the narrator gave within it and also the detailed descriptions he made in a deductively way in order to mention the place where the German student was rented.
    Another important aspect that I like from this story is the use of flashbacks because these create more tension and confusion when I was reading. The use of dialogues is another strategy that helps the story to become more interesting and with more curiosity.
    Finally the end of the story left me in shock because the woman he was enamoured was just death and also because I didn’t imagine that he will die in a mad-house.
    by Tatiana Guzman

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  7. Marco Antonio TorresMarch 7, 2011 at 7:31 PM

    I have already read this story before turned into an urban legend. It is the story of a taxi driver who picked up a beautiful girl and took her to her place. For some reason, he had to return to the girl's house the next day. He knocked at the door and an old lady opened. He asked for the girl but the old woman allegated she didn't know her. The taxi driver described the girl to her and the old woman, clearly surprised, said she had died years ago.
    The story of the German student, even though it is the original one, didn't suprised me. I was able to predict the woman was death when she said to the student that her home was in the grave. What indeed impresed me was that he got laid with her.
    I guess stories are updated or modified to fit the current believes of the people or the culture. I guess it does no harm but it should be told at least the orignial author or title. I guess it wouldn't make the same effect as if I assure the story happened to a real taxi driver here in Pamplona, though.

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  8. I am not a good reader, but I was really interested in this story. At the begining I though that it was just a typical boyscout story, but when I started to read it was striking to my imagination.
    I think that the part when Wolfgang was haapy because he found the correct woman for him and then he realized next day that the woman is dead reflects that in some point of your life you can find the balance, security and the stability that you've always dreamed, but also in any moment you can lose it, so, you always have to be on your feet, don't lose your mind, be pacient, life is a circle and the opportunities can knock at your door don't waste them.

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  10. “...Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
    Stephen King
    I have always thought that the greatest struggle we need to fight is for our dreams. I think all of us have wished something with madness; we have done our best in order for our dreams to come true. But sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, your deepest desires have never come to reality. Hence, our mind, in order to reach or dreams, loses the sense of reality, and in the blackness of insanity, our ideals finally live with us. I think that’s exactly what happened to Gottfried. He lost his lucidity trying to meet the woman he had made up. And, in the dark labyrinths of his mind, he finally found her, he touched her, he held her close, therefore, he had to pay a high price… he would never be able to tell reality from fiction. His most ardent desire became a monster, a ghost who finally won.
    Marigni Peña

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  11. Well, first of all, I would like to say that I really enjoyed this story because since we started to study foreign languages in this University, we have not read these kinds of stories. We used to read Love Stories, classic tales or Shakespeare. I am not saying that Shakespeare’s’ plays are not interesting, but it is stimulating to read about others topics, such as drama and terror
    .
    When I started to read “the adventures of a German student” I thought the story was about a boy involved in a conflict during the second war world or how he lost his family or something similar. I was surprised as I read this story because the author narrated it in such a terrifying way that I became petrified. This story can be interpreted in several different ways and this is something that really caught my attention. I consider this story from three different perspectives:

    1. Madness is generally considered to be a very serious mental illness. People who have it can hurt others including themselves, but “Madness” in this context describes an “innocent illness”. I say that because many authors, painters, and poets around the world, dead or alive, have been inspired by women or what we call “Muses” and many of those crazy men have made wonderful cultural and artistic contributions to humanity. So, as we know Wolfgang was a dreamer, a passionate admirer of female beauty. I think this was the main reason that he started to imagine events that were only in his mind…

    2. Doctrines or different ways to think and conceive the world can have repercussions in people’s minds. Washington mentioned, “He had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German Students”. In our daily life, we have seen how teenagers are influenced by doctrines or beliefs, which lead them into a dreadful world totally isolated, and full of loneliness and bitterness. In some cases that loneliness makes people crazy and causes them to imagine things that don’t exist.

    3. Finally, Social and Politics Conflicts can also affect people’s sanity. I think Washington chose the French Revolution as the setting for this story for a reason. I believe that the Guillotine, bloodbath and carnage disturbed German Student’s minds. I imagine that, if I had lived through these events, in which people were unfairly massacred every single day, I would also have been disturbed. So Wolfgang reacted to these violent events by imagining a decapitated woman rather than a monster or anything else.

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  12. First of all, I have to say that this is the first time that I read a story like this in English; that is to say, a paranormal story. I usually prefer to read novels, tales, and books related to personal improvement. I do not like reading about topics that make me feel scared, since I am nervous person. However, the adventure of the German Student was a really interesting paranormal story. I felt a little scared when I understood the total sense of the story but I really enjoyed the plot.
    At the beginning I didn’t understand what happened with the German boy. I had doubts about if the boy was really crazy or all the events were real. But at the end, I realized that all those events were only the product of his imagination. I could not avoid comparing the Gottfried’s mental situation with the “Quijote de la mancha”. Both have the same thing in common. They started to read books about a specific topic and at the end they had gone mad because of the theoretical books influence. For example, in the case of the Quijote, he started to read about cavalry books and after some time those books distorted his thoughts to the point of driving him mad.

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  13. When I started reading this short story, I had no idea of what the story was about, I did not even imagine that it was a dark humor tale. However, it surprised the way it presented the title and how each event was described in a wonderful manner.

    On the other hand, I must mention that the description the author made, involved me in the story; I felt every moment, these kinds of narrative tales make the readers be motivated to continue reading until the end 'cause it began with a common situation in which there is an European student who traveled to another country to change of setting but the situation changed when Wolfgang (the student) is completely involved in the spiritualism and the demons started to hurt him in a mental way.
    Furthermore, when Wolfgang fell in love with that strange woman He felt he finally had found the reason of his existence but all that glitter is not gold and the student collected what he had sown before, searching in that devilish world.

    To sum up, I do not ever advise anybody to involve in the spiritualism because sooner or later the person is going to surprised of how many horrible things he/she will find when opening a window to that satanic world.

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  14. WELL, Jesus!!! what a creepy story, still a good one. I really enjoyed reading this just because i really love them of this kind. what I found really acertained was the way the author described every single scene in a very detailled way, and i say so because these are the elements that a book needs to have to capture the readers attention.

    Talking about the content, well, I really loved the fact that, this german student who was such a gloomy and out of mind person had felt in love with someone...i mean, that part was just beautiful as I didnt expect that, therefore it was just a nice touch!!!!!!...ALso, I liked the wide variety of new and "elegant words" the authour used..just perfect!!!!

    finally i must say this story can be taken to a television screen...people just imagine yourself watching this movie in the middle of the night, lol X3!! lol

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  15. This story is not common as another ones because is a excellent horror tale narrated with details that give us the impression of a real one. In fact, when I began to read I could not imagine what the plot was, because I believed that It was about a boy who was traveling around the world to know peple and different cultures to stablishes in the most familiar to him.

    Well,I was reading this story at night and when I found the plot I was so scared about it and I had to stop the reading and to continue the next day; it was so funny at the same time when I realized how involved I was by the story that night as it was real. In fact, it is a fantastic horror story that is narrated with a good description that contain another subplots doing a complete horror scenary.

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  16. Maybe, when we listen about adventures we think about good things (trips, plays, sports, concerts, etc). We never think that adventures can be also negative, and this is the reason which made me think that the story of the German student was a really amazing adventure which would make us smile a lot.
    When reading the title “the adventure of the German student”, I also focused on the word “student”, so for me, it would be about craziness in the school, maybe about a bad guy who didn't want to stay in the classroom, or who didn't obey the teacher. It specifies that he was a student, so, it was easy for me to think that everything was related to the typical student who doesn't want to work, or even the unruly student of the class who wants to call the others' attention through his crazy adventures.

    There is something important within the story an it is the moment of more tension. In this moment the reader is so confused, also, the narrator gives more suspense to the moment by using some terror words, and some punctuation marks. I'm talking about the moment when the young man sees the girl, then the narrator starts with a very good description of her, so in this moment the reader don't understand who is she, or the reason of her appearance. It is a really good part of the story and I think that it is the climax because here the more interesting facts start.
    Another thing that called my attention was when the head of the woman rolled down; it was funny, but at the time so terrible.

    In spite of the amount of unknown vocabulary I could understand the plot of this awful story, but I cannot deny that some sentences and expressions were hard to understand .
    For me, it is a good story, even, in one part of it, I was so afraid.

    By: Claudia Rincón

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  17. This story was extremely different from the story of Bill, since each one has no point of comparison: one is about mystery and the other is about drama, so each one has it of everyone.
    Despite this, each story takes us to keep our attention, in this case, what struck me was the way the narrator told the story more mysterious, for example, the part where he told the romantic moment when the German student in spite of the situation experienced at that time, he managed to meet the woman of his dreams and being so he offered her to marry with him; romantic and horrible at the same time!, because when waking up and seeing that woman with whom he spent the night was dead, that was not a good experience of love. Also, trying to find answers, could not explain why that body, that very body of the woman who he dreams everynight and everyday had reached that place. that part was interesting to me because nobody has the answer to that event, it was very misterous and that is why I can say that was a great story, because it was mysterious, and those are the kinds of stories that are enjoyable for beginning readers like me.

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  18. The title “The adventure of the German student” obviously suggests you to think about a huge adventure, maybe a young student travelling, or all the anecdotes of a student in college, anyways, you can imagine everything but a character like Wolfgang.
    That guy was so in his world of ancient literature and unbelievable stories of mysticism, that he even thought that he was been chased by a kind of demon that wanted to secure his perdition. He went to France so he could find some rest because he was being tormented by that”evil force” and also because he had a recurrent dream with a girl, but what he did not know was that it would be in France where things were going to change drastically.
    One night he was just roaming around when he found himself in front of the guillotine, by that time that gadget was always hungry of fresh flesh, he panic and as he turned he saw a bizarre figure. He approach, and saw his dreamed girl, apparently she was mourning someone, so he offered his help as a gentlemen would usually do.
    He took him to his apartment to stay for the night, there was an amazing connection between them, however he did not was getting himself into. He thought he had finally found the one, but next day the entire spell disappeared, he just found the corps of his lover.
    What a surprise when he called the police and they where perplex of seeing the girl that has being guillotined the previous day in that gloomy room.
    Wolfgang was astonished and he said that the devil has finally won by ensnaring him with that gorgeous girl.
    From my perspective this was quite a good story, the author handle how to keep your interest in the hole story, not just for the story itself , but for the way he writes in such a descriptive way.
    It was shocking when you actually realized that Wolfgang was quite a loner and when he finally finds love, everything crashed down, he gave everything he had to that stranger lady and she was just a corps that came back to life to ensure his perdition, or at least that is the impression he has.
    I absolutely loved the story, THUMBS UP!!!

    Carlos S. Vera

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  19. This black short story, it’s one of the most interesting that I have read. Because, I love the way in which the author covers this story with a title that does not have similitude with the content and pushes the reader to continue reading with the mystical shadow of the suspense stories. Moreover, this story gives an important element to the reader imagination because, we can interpret this story in different ways for instance: this story makes me feel that even after dead the soul mates belong together even after death. Although, at the end of this story changes all romantic thought. And, I just can think in our demons that sometimes they are within ourselves and if we allow them to take control we will be lost. Anyway, the story is great and recommendable and you are free to believe what you want.

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  20. When I read the title "The adventure of a German student" Immediately, I thought it was about a wonderful adventure, where he shared with his friends from college or school adventures that he lived with them. However, when I started reading the story to my surprise it was something totally different, this was one of those mysterious stories, and I never imagined that this was one of those stories. I love these stories because there is a mixture of horror with mystery, it is really fascinating.
    This story really caught my attention, while I read I imagined each event, the way the author described each event was perfect, did not neglect any detail. The author gave suspense, intrigue, but also he added a pinch of love in the midst of tragedy which made the story more interesting.
    The matrix of this story was undoubtedly the end when the German student discovered the woman of his dreams was already dead when he met her. When I read this part arose many questions: the story was true or not? How did the woman's body arrive there? which can have multiple answers depending on the reader. What response would you each question? Think about it.

    In brief, this story was really interesting. I like it so much due to the mixture of horror and
    mystery.

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  21. Erika:
    Gottfried Wolfgang is a young man who passes through different obscure situations which many teenagers live everyday: uncertainly, rebelliousness, ignorance, solitude, among others behaviours. He looks for a lifestyle where the stablished paradigms mustn't be followed for him at all. For instance, it seems that he doesn't feel fear of God since he likes growing in the middle of blood and conflicts. In addition, he wants to live in a lonely way where his only world be himself. On the other hand, he becomes obsessed for women beauty and he feeds impure thoughts in his imagination even though he doesn't know yet the abyss in which he will fall: his encounter with death.
    This is the reality we live, it lacks a lot of fear of God specially in teenagers, besides, an obsession not controlled can kill a person in different aspects.
    Finally, it is important to pray for the eternal rest of souls as probably many of them are on pain and need peace and forgiveness.
    ERIKA ADRIANA ROJAS VALERO

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  22. Puri:

    Firstly, it is important to point out that Irving is one of the most famous American authors, and in this story he has written an elaborated and fantastic piece called The adventure of the German student , where there is no doubt of its richness of vocabulary and also how the writer catches the reader’s attention.
    Furthermore, one should not forget that in short stories, it is usual to have an ending as a knock-out and this tale was certainly not the exception. So, I personally believe that the success of this story is its unexpected and terrifying ending.
    Moreover, I am convinced that when authors write about the most secret feelings of human beings, like love and madness, they make you get into the story because sometimes we have been into similar situations or thoughts; in this case the author puts forward how Gottfried’’s dreams make him lose the sense of reality, his lucidity, by trying to meet the woman he had made up, and in some occasions we also have fatuous dreams impossible to reach making us lose precious time of our life. With this in mind, it is important to be aware of what we wish because life is not so long and what we do or wish in the present may change our future.

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  23. Robinson
    Excellent story, first of all, I have to be honest and say I do not like reading anything, but these two readings of “Bill and this The Adventure of the German Student” have changed my perspective of seeing the reading as boring into interesting.
    Well, secondly I would like to discuss the different feelings that produced this short story on me.
    In a first place, it’s really impressive how the author describes in a deep detail the situation and all the settings presented in this reckless story. Besides, thanks to all those details given by the author, my imagination led me to feel as if I were standing in that square of Paris in front of the guillotine and seeing that woman in black.
    Another feeling was that as I continued reading the suspense and I have to be honest, a bit of fear was invading my body, but I could not stop reading because I wanted to know the big finale of this huge love story.
    Finally, when I read the last part of this short story, I could not believe what I was reading and I never expected such an outcome, a really great writing and a true sign that practice reading become us with feelings and more intelligent people.

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  24. Ivonne
    Personally, I should point out that when I read the title, I visualized a story completely different to the one described in the text. I never thought that “adventures” could also be negative.
    One thing is certain: for me, “The Adventure of the German Student” is an amazing story due to illustrate the biggest effort and the fight of a human did in order to achieve his dreams.
    I would like to remark, this story taught me that we, as human beings, sometimes dream with a special person or moment and the most important is how our dreams, product of our imagination, became true occasionally. Nevertheless, all these dreams can, sometimes, affect our daily life at the point of being perturbed by them and confused reality with fiction. I assume that was specifically what happened to Gottfried.
    To conclude, this was an extraordinary story which in the middle of a tragedy situation there was a demonstration of “true love”.

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  25. COMMENT ABOUT THE
    “THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT”

    I think the adventure of the German Student is a wonderful writing in which terror and love are mixed to create a fantastic story; these elements catch readers into an exciting write up. Something interesting about this text is the way the author includes a real fact: The French Revolution; I consider he wanted to criticize the social situation in France at that epoch, this is why, in some paragraphs, Washington let the readers know the cruel acts existing during the war. I like so much the detailed description made by the Author because it allows me to feel as if I were in that right place.
    Besides, concerning the facts of Wolfgang’s life, I do not know if the events occurred to him could be real or untrue, but something that called my attention was the phrases the author used to describe the mental state of Wolfgang; expressions like these: “ His unhealthy appetite”, “his intense application and singular nature of his studies had affect on both mind and body”. This latter makes me ask myself if a person who is too much immersed in her/his studies could go crazy, like Wolfgang case. In this part of the text the author did a special reflection of the balance that should exist among some aspects in human life such as love, family , studies or work.
    Finally, I would like to read more stories like this. It was fast-moving and also let me reflect about life, society and love.

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  26. So, in contrast to what I commented about Gale´s short story, The Adventure of the German Student caught me from the very beginning. When I read the title, I felt like there were a million possibilities for Irving to write such a headline, I mean, let’s think of the meaning of the word “Adventure” in the first place. I bet a lot of things come to our minds when we do it, right? And in my case, I thought that maybe this short story would have a happier ending than Bill’s, but once again, the unexpected took place. The ending was so fascinating, so sad and so frightening (at least in my case) that I was eager for more. I wanted a continuation. It’s not fair for an unsatisfied reader like me, not to have a long story to know all the morbid details of Gottfried’s life and death, of all his hours in the catacombs of Paris becoming crazier and crazier and why not, of the reasons why his mysterious and doubtable lover died. That’s another part that intrigues me: the death of this enigmatic girl. What was her history? Why did she die?… Could it be that there’s “The Adventure of the German Student: Part 2”? Like in Harry Potter?…(sight). Well, at the end of the day it was an amazing story full of what I like the most: Horror.I have to admit that I love happy stories but I get passionate when the characters suffer and cry and go mad and experience all kind of sorrowful situations, because that demonstrate me the author’s capacity to make the characters feel pain and sorrow and engage the reader with all the awful details !!!! And that, joined with the fact that the events this story took place in the middle of the French Revolution made it more bizarre in terms of the student’s madness as well as the setting gave it more realism, so I, as a reader, could feel the characters’ feelings as my own, I mean I would gone mad too if I would have found my lover dead in the bed.

    Finally, if I could have met Mister Irving, I would congratulate him for reminding me that Love is blind and Madness accompanies it.

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  27. This short story is one the most shocking I’ve ever read before; its content shows an extraordinary bizarre love story in which is possible to find so many dimensions of this topic that I never thought it would be possible to write about. The main character of this story is a young man with a dangerous enthusiasm which can be noted in his personality description; also, the factor related to the lack of reason, lack of balance, madness, mystery and horror mixed with the whole events from the French revolution gives to this story a real environment in which the reader can feel immerse, but most important than all these aspects, it’s the resemblance between the revolution’s setting with the characters’ personalities, that is a reflection of the dark time of that moment, in which death was another main character in this scary story.
    Talking about the story itself, I have to say that my early expectations were totally different, if I compare the content of the story with what I had thought about it; however, I liked how the author wrote it, because of the symbolism he used, the descriptions of the settings and lands, and specially the ending, it was unexpected and during the whole reading I was waiting for knowing what the main character would do, and especially when he found the woman of his dreams. The whole story is simply magnificent, that’s why Irving is considered an international figure in the literary world.

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  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  29. The Adventure of the German Student is one of the works written by Washington Irving, who is the father of short stories in United States. In this story, the author made reference to a specific situation in which is involved the German student named Gottfried Wolfgang. He suffered a mental illness that produced over him different kinds of effects, such as: feelings of loneliness, sadness, depression, etc. At the same time, those effects made of him an imaginary and crazy person, who developed inside himself some fancy ideas of his perfect woman in all his dreams, which came true one day when he passed in front of a scaffold in Paris where people at the time of French Revolution were guillotined for different reasons; there he met that mysterious woman.

    At the beginning of the reading, with the title, it is very interesting to have a general idea about the story, but, when it continues, it changes because, personally, I did not imagine that the woman who is the imaginary love of Wolfgang at the end was the person who was guillotined the day before meeting him. Nevertheless, it was amazing the kind of reading and the diverse descriptions of each detail of the story, because the narrator had the chance to write everything he knew about the facts and relevant events, but also, the feelings of each one of the characters, from the main characters to the minor ones. For this reason, it is important to highlight that the word Adventure that is in the title, in this case, it did not represent like trips, fights, finding a secret treasure in an island, and so on; it had an implicit and a deeper meaning, because it involved the deception of Wolfgang when at the end of the story he realized that his eternal love was a corpse, and he became more crazier until the point of dying in a mad-house without enjoying his life totally. If we as readers analyze it with more details, we can also mention that the central situation if the story has a closer relationship with one of the author’s important events in life: the death of his girlfriend at the age of 17. I could say that is like a mirror of the feelings Irving Washington experienced at this sad moment, because during all his life he remembered her and he never married with one another. In addition, it is relevant to make reference to another aspect that I consider it has relationship with author’s life; for example, Wolfgang was interested in political and philosophical theories of that time (The French Revolution), and Irving was a diplomatic of the USA in Spain and in England.

    Finally, I really recommend this story to be read in order to have and remember some facts that happened at the French Revolution and the most important to enjoy the great level of description that an excellent author can share with the readers, in order to transport them to an imaginary world and forget just for a moment the difficulties and problems that can exist in daily life.

    WRITTEN BY: CLARA NOELIA VILLAMIZAR COTE
    IXTH SEMESTER
    ANGLOPHONE LITERATURE

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  30. THREE REASONS TO READ THE ADVENTURES OF THE GERMAN STUDENT (A SHORT STORY)
    First of all, I am going to give you a little information about the story to have a clear idea of it, to then understand the three main reasons why we should read this beautiful short story. To begin, the adventure of the German student s a story that concerns a young student from Germany who had intense speculations on dark and mystical side of existence; for this reason, both his physical health and his imagination became ill. In order to combat Wolfgang’s madness he was sent to Paris by their friends with the objective to change his morbid obsessions, but it was the contrary, because there, he was influenced by scenes of terror and cruelty because of Paris revolution what made that he became craizer. One day, when he went to Place de Grève, a place where daily executions were performed on the guillotine, he saw a beautiful woman who had been in his dreams in many opportunities, then he went with her to his chamber and immediately he fell in love with her and he expressed to her, all his passion and love during all night. The next day, he went out in order to search a better place to live when he returned he met her died with a terrible face; in that moment he called for help and immediately to his chamber arrived a police officer who recognized that she had been guillotined the night before Wolfgang though that he had been possessed by an evil spirit. Finally, he died in a mad-house.
    To continue, as we can appreciate in this little summary, it is a horror story that has a lot of elements that make it so interesting, for this reason in this opportunity I am going to give you three specific reasons why you should read this fantastic story.
    The first reason, narrator is so descriptive at the moment to talk about physical and mental characteristics of the main characters which make that readers really feel that they are living this situation. Also, it is important to emphasize that narrator described in a deeply way all settings where the whole story was developed, without forgetting that one crucial element that caught my attention was the appropriated terminology and the way as narrator expressed feelings of characters.
    The second reason, when we as readers finished to read the whole story, we can imagine how could happened some facts, for example we can reflect on some questions like: who was this woman?, was she a witch, a ghost or a writer who was guillotined because of her contrary ideas against society that were published in some books?, was she dead or not? Was it only a dream that Wolfgang had because of his mental disease?
    To finish the third reason, the story gives us a moral because according to my point of view, narrator wanted to say us that in many opportunities we have to control our mind and our physical behaviors, because if we pay attention to crazy and strange things that many people say and if we don’t have a strong personality that can decide the best thing that we have to do in our life, we can be sure that we are going to become mad.

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  31. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT
    This short story has all the ingredients that one story needs to be a success; it combines love, horror, and madness in a singular way to captivate reader. From the beginning, this story gives us deep details about the places in which the story was developed and we can imagine every place, even the sounds, objects and the feelings that the characters expressed; each description is like a travel into the events of the story.
    However, the author (Washington Irving) is best known for his short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle “this work cannot be depreciated because it has its charm and is really exciting so many directors have used extracts of this story for their films. We can read this story many times because each time we read, we find something new, maybe an unnoticed detail or idiom that change a little the story, that modifies its content and sometimes its end. In class, this story created a great debate, everybody had a different view on the story, and everybody supported their own conclusions; the literature class was really exciting. For all those things, this story not only was better but it exceeded all expectations.

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  32. This short story is amazing ….!!! I loved it from the very beginning; when I first read the tittle, I imagined it was going to be a story of happiness and fancy young German guys but it was totally the opposite. I never thought this adventure was going to be so sinister and obscure, but anyway it was quite interesting since it caught my attention when I started the reading, first I tried to make the reading in two or more stages but, I could not help the emotions and feelings that this story brought me up that I had to read the whole story no stopping.
    I also liked, the way the author wrote this short story because, somehow I did feared I transported myself into the story picturing and imagining the physical and mental characteristics of the characters. In addition, I do believe that this story was excellent due to its great amount of details given by the writer which allowed me to fell in love with the story. Also there was another fact that I liked and was the city where the short story took place that was in the charming Paris.

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  33. COMMENT OF THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    WASHINGTON IVING, is a short story writer, and also considered as one of the most famous American authors, not only because of the role he played in politics culture and literature; but also the adventures he had to face up during his early life, voyages, studies, works and personal experiences. Through those aspects he enriched his literay works, specially the way he narrates, presents and tell us the events in all his works; specially in his stories.
    A great example of this is “THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT”, a story in which we can know a young man who belongs of the people up of a German family. Gottfried Wolfgang, is a student who lived his life with passion, I mean with intense application and a singular nature his study. For that reason, he suffers a mental malady. It was one of the main aspects that engaged him into a solitary, weird and isolated person.
    However, there were many others reasons which affected his process as foreign student in Paris. “THE FRENCH REVOLUTION”, culture, beheaded people, weird dreams and all the setting surrounded him.
    As a conclusion, I can say something else the sprit, body, and mind Of Wolfgan were weak and he was attacked by a woman spirit until he died in a mad-house.

    Enel Rojas

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  34. This is an example of a story which can turn from the happy end which we are used to read, to an unexpected story that finishes by capturing the interest and intrigue feelings of the reader. Through this story I could observe the immense creativity and great imagination of the author who made a horror story which initially had a plot based on love and confidence.
    To my concern, the author could communicate a deeper message around the idea that sometimes the human beings tend to trust in first impressions, images and conversations, closing their mind to see only what they want. Consequently, the wrong conceptions generate different kinds of problems and confusions with a huge possibility to do not find right solutions.

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  35. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    As I see it, this story was really exciting when I started to read it, since it was so intriguing for me the way that the narrator explain to the readers all the events and details of the story. Moreover, I have to point out, that I did not expect this kind of story due to the title, which it makes me to imagine a great story of traveling and loving’s adventures.
    However, it was the opposite of what I imagined but I loved this mysterious story, because after reading I was asking myself if the German Student was a madman or if these things could pass in the real world, I do not know what to think about that, because maybe the ghosts exist, since some people say that in a moment of their lifes they saw a ghost and it is so striking because, sometimes I have dreamed of ghosts and dead people and I everytime I ask myself… is there an afterlife after death? Or are we followed by ghosts?

    Darymar

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  36. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    At the very beginning, I wanted to know how was the story about because of the tittle, I was thinking about the adventure of a new student in another city who in the university, met a girl and all these things, but when I start reading I realized it was complete different, it is that kind of stories that you have to continue reading till the end because it totally catches your attention.

    I’m not a big fan of that kind of fiction stories, I prefer love stories and romantic stuff, that is why at the beginning I was like “okay I have to read that and do the homework” but in the middle of the reading I decided to start again because it was really interesting, the way that the author mentions every single detail and how things happened; it makes me feel interested in the story, also because everything has a sequence in order to have a complete idea of it, the end was unexpected, I thought would be different but not, he died; so I wanted to know more about that strange girl and why she appeared, what were her intentions, if she was real or was a ghost and why she decided to talk with him.

    There are many unknown things, kind of mystery and different facts to solve, I think that it was the author’s purpose, everybody has a different perspective of the story, and to my point of view is the most important thing about the story because the reader can imagine different endings and probably create a new one.

    By Sandy Liseth Cañas Carrillo

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  37. Talking about these types of tales I must say that I absolutely love them, I love reading stories that have different themes, because I feel that they take me into another dimension.
    Authors like Washington Irving can be seen by some people as crazy or delusional personal. But I do love the way he writes and how he plays with the readers’ mind. He is an amazing writer and I would definitely recommend him to future Anglophone literature students.
    One of the things that called my attention the most was the factor that he dreamed about a woman who did not even existed and then he started seeing her everywhere. But the story does not end there because in his real life he was sort of obsessed with his wife who died. Maybe that is why he tried to represent part of his personal life in his tale. Sometimes authors try to put pieces of their lives in their writings but it does not mean that it is always like this. Sometimes it is just coincidence.
    I was mesmerized by the story I love tales like this one because it enriches my imagination and maybe one day I’ll be able to publish my own tale.

    Susan Cordoba

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  38. Talking about these types of tales I must say that I absolutely love them, I love reading stories that have different themes, because I feel that they take me into another dimension.
    Authors like Washington Irving can be seen by some people as crazy or delusional personal. But I do love the way he writes and how he plays with the readers’ mind. He is an amazing writer and I would definitely recommend him to future Anglophone literature students.
    One of the things that called my attention the most was the factor that he dreamed about a woman who did not even existed and then he started seeing her everywhere. But the story does not end there because in his real life he was sort of obsessed with his wife who died. Maybe that is why he tried to represent part of his personal life in his tale. Sometimes authors try to put pieces of their lives in their writings but it does not mean that it is always like this. Sometimes it is just coincidence.
    I was mesmerized by the story I love tales like this one because it enriches my imagination and maybe one day I’ll be able to publish my own tale.

    Susan Cordoba

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  39. Through this story I realized that I am also fascinated by dark stories. This author has a different style when it comes to drama and horror. This story helped me to understand in a deeper way, what can be going through an author’s mind while writing because, every now and then they want us to think of something (that might be a possible ending) and then they surprise us with a new conclusion of the story and this author succeeded at it.
    I was really surprised by such ending, I did not even expect that it was going to like that, because he was so in love that I thought that with this beautiful woman he found he was going to end with his boring and lonely life in such romantic city (Paris) but after all it was not worthy, instead of being happy he ended up being betrayed by death or maybe as he used to think by a devil presence.
    Finally, I want to say that this type of stories call my attention and make me think that there is more than meets the eye in life.

    Yessica’s Comment

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  40. The theme of the short story The Adventure of the German Student written by Irvin is a mixture among different minor topics. Although each one has different presence during the story; all try to show Irving’s feeling and thinking during the timeline which he was living in the past.

    Irving began writing and introduced the story with a critic about the French Revolution, well, it is not very directed but I supposed he cited that event in order to the reader imagine and understand some behavior and thinking of the German student because of it.

    Finally, Irving used the literary elements as setting and characterization in a quite good way and well described which facilitated me to understand the story. The most interesting was how Irving mixed love, a little of history and mystical events for writing a good story.

    By: Elkin Perneth

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  41. This short story contains several aspects that really captured my attention and kept me reading, because I was not prepared for what will occur later in the story. Firstly, the author’s sense of humor along with the detailed description that he gave of the student’s hallucinations about the fake and imaginary romance that he had with his better half, really made me laugh. Accordingly, it was really funny to observe that she returned his feelings in the way he wanted her to, with the same madness of him.

    Added to that, the gloomy feature of the story regarding Gottfried’s role and the description about his situation was a bit exaggerated -as it kept on going worse-; therefore, it evoked a lot of expectations, from which my earliest one was that he was going to kill himself in an insane way. Last but not least, I consider that the author only showed the imaginary aspect about the main character, but not the way things happened. Thus, one has to take into account that an insane person imagines things which are far from reality and so the author let us travel with our own imagination without revealing the flip side of the coin.

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  42. The adventure of the German student is the first spooky tale I have read in my entire life and it has caught my attention very deeply even though the tale was written long time ago and, of course, is old English it is very fantastic to see how the story takes place and the events begin to develop one after another and also the way they are presented in the whole story, this should be considered very astonishing and attractive for whomever who reads it.
    On the other hand the author was very careful when writing the story, because as I can perceive there are many details in the whole story that make the reader recreate the images and the different settings that inside the tale are described.
    Finally I can assure that this story, besides being real is completely attractive and very romantic because no matter what the end was what matters is that the main character found what he was looking for and that should be an example for the humanity who is fighting for what they dream.


    Fredys Beltran Betin

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  43. This tale is full of mystery, fantasy, thriller, fiction and romance. It tells the weird love story of a young German named Gottfried Wolfgang who lived and died in a mad-house owing to the dreadful event that he had in his apartment with the woman of his dreams. On the other side, it captures the reader attention thanks to the mix of events and the feelings given by the narrator and the main character.
    I can say that my early expectation was unlike in comparison with the plot of the story due to I thought that it referred about adventures or something like that. In despite of this fact, I like the way how Washington Irving wrote it. Also, it has an amazing description of the settings and the characters. From my point of view the tittle is not so linked with the sequence of the events and the surprising ending presented in the whole reading for that reason it is more interesting. Lastly, When I finished the story, I felt scare and I told myself that I would never met my better half in a stormy night because I would not like to get crazy like this student. Jaja :)

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  44. Beginning with the title it seems as a fabulous adventure but after reading I realize that not all in the world is explained at the first time. Talking about the story it made me think about many real facts; the of having a relationship with a guillotined woman, also the madness of the student at the point of dreaming with her before meeting her, but, the most important fact is that the development of the story made me live the tale; it was wonderful imagining each step on it.
    It is a good story which shows us that it is possible to express our feelings through the writing; it does not matter if they are completely out of the reality or if the imagination is bigger than our reason. The adventure of the German student tells readers the importance of being open-minded and subjective at the time of understanding each aspect of the tale.

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  45. THE ADVENTURE OF GERMAN STUDENT
    The Adventure of the German Student is one of those appealing stories that catch the attention of the readers, therefore in every line and paragraph there is a new word that makes increase and enriches the person’s vocabulary. Besides, it is a story in which we as someone who usually reads never want to finish, owing to it involves and seduces us with its own captivating narration. No doubt, the Adventure of German Student enamors, attaches, and invites to reflect the readers in the facts that happen in the story.
    On the other hand, I would like to compare the way as the major character, Gottfried behaved, to the way as we sometimes react, because we assure that someone is angry or he/she does not like us. In the case of Gottfried, he always thought that an evil was pursuing for taking possession of him,but it was just a crazy fancy thought that flooded his mind. And something similar happens to us when we believe that people hate us and then, it turns out that they love us. So, the idea is not to live with those kinds of false evils in our life. It is necessary to think positive every time.

    Yhoel Castillo Díaz

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  46. The adventure of the German student is an impressive short story in which the author, Washington Irving uses a different plot, he transmits to the reader not only a kind of a critic related to the bloody terror at that historical time “French revolution”, but also he introduces a romantic part, it is because his literary movement was the romanticism, furthermore the author creates an unexpected contrast by presenting a tragic ending.
    In addition, what caught my attention as reader was the way how the story took me away from the reality, due to the deep descriptions of the setting, characters’ feelings, thoughts and their physical appearances; in fact, I have to admit that I was afraid when the main character realized that the girl of his dreams was already dead when he spent the night with her. Finally, I strongly feel that one reflection is that we should appreciate all we do, but mainly those who are part of our life, because if right now we are alive, then the next day we could not assure it.

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  47. The adventure of the German Student”

    “The adventure of the German Student” was written by Washington Irving. This author is known around the world for his masterpiece “The legend of sleepy Hallow” and other stories. In this kind of stories show us lots of ideas about creativity and imagination a writer has. Each story settles down a way to trigger reflection about literature. On artist transforms our reality and we as readers interpret and understand his thought.
    From my point of view, these stories make an impact me because there are some aspects that arouse fear. However, when I finished reading this story, just I though in my subjective perspective about this work and how it affects and changes my ideas. Moreover, the last class, I did a critique about this story “The adventure of the German Student” and his writer but after I understood the meaning of this story “it is a fiction” likewise the writer who has a deeply vision in his inspiration in his writings. Owing to that, I would like to read other stories of this genre when it comes to figure out the end and we can create the imagination, the reasons and the experiences the writer had to write “The adventure of the German Student

    LEYDI LORENA VASQUEZ RUIZ :)

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  48. “The Adventure of the German Student”

    I would like to divide my comment into two parts: the first one, the descriptions of the settings that the author gives to situate the reader and the second one, about the situation of the main character. First of all, Irving is very descriptive about the places where the story takes place, it was really helpful to me to paint in my mind the setting and feel myself walking through the street of Paris.
    Secondly, the story describes a very difficult situation lived by a poor young with lots of problems, emotional disorder and who probably lived a frustrated childhood. On the other hand, the writer is very creative, so the reader can feel the same as the author at the time of writing the tale. Finally, this is a short story that I would recommend to all people who love this kind of stories, to whom love the suspense and the mystery.

    Anibal Acuña Acuña

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  49. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    The adventure of the German student is a story in which the narrator tells how a young man, Wolfgan is condemned to suffer a, dangerous, curious and mysterious episode in his life. In times of French revolution, this visionary and enthusiastic man, meets a beautiful but devastated woman who lands him with her oddest and unreal existence; this is the reason why Wolfgan’s strange personality is conducted to an extreme where neither his own will is able to rescue him.

    Through this story, Washington Irving expresses that human beings life is full of obstacles, which sometimes are not get over because there is not self domination of own behaviors. It lets understand that lust and pleasure are feelings that sometimes are not controlled by its owners, reason why there is a society composed by some animals who are convinced that they are rational. The only pleasure of life is to think to behave and not just behaving to think.

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  50. When reading the title of the tale, the last thing you imagine is that it is about a young student affected by his physical and mental maladies that bring him to experience paranormal situations that carry him to the madness. For that reason, I love this kind of stories in which unpredictable and unexplained things happen. Through the reading I confirm that I found fascinating this kind of written style where we try always to understand how it is going to end.

    There is mystery in our world and most of us live our life trying to find answers to it. Although I found familiar to dream with people I have never met, the way that woman appeared to him was terrifying, that fact disturbed the main character of the story. Due to the level of description inside the tale we found that similar situations are presented in or daily life. Moreover, every single person can interpret it according to his own beliefs and thoughts on the topic. I really recommend to read this short tale based on the author’s own life in which we learn not only historical aspects but to feel characters sensations as our own.

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  51. The adventure of the German student is an interesting mixture between adventure, suspense, capsizing, irony and dark tales. When you start reading it, you do not imagine the coming facts, even less, the ending of the story. But that is precisely the most attractive, the surprise factor and the unexpected elements this work contains.


    When I finished reading the story, I wondered about the nature of the woman who met Gottfried; and after reviewing each detail and each description of the tale, I can infer the female was a ghost who did not realize she had died and who just wanted a shred of love from a man, given her hard and suffered life. If you want to check what I say, I invite you to read the story. I’m sure it will catch your attention.

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  52. The short story written by Washington Irving “The adventure of the German student”, which took as a setting a tragic night in the French Revolution, is a story which plays with the reader’s emotions because it is a mixture of feelings such as melancholy, loneliness, love and madness and concludes with an unexpected ending that let the reader confused and with many questions to make. On the other hand I can infer that the writer wanted to recall his feelings because this story is similar to what I read in his biography.
    In my opinion this story deserve to be an amazing movie of mystery because there are some facts which do not allow the reader to guess the end and the reader should be trying to untangle the tale; however I disagree with the author about the title he chose because it is not an adventure that a normal reader is used to. As a reader I rather this kind of stories that let me literally open mouth.

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  53. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    When I started to read "The adventure of a German student” immediately, I thought that it was the typical story about the adventures that a student has in his life with his friends from college or school. When I began reading the tale to my surprise it was something totally different, this short tale of fear it’s one of the most interesting that I have read, because one of the events most interesting for me in the history of the world is the French Revolution and imagine the blood and the guillotine that was used as instrument of carnage it was like being transported back in time and live a mixture of horror with mystery, it was really fascinating.
    Finally, when I read the last part of this short story, I though that the real love can break barriers, even across the unimaginable as is the way of death and life. This was a wonderful tale which in the middle of a tragedy was a sample of true love.

    Francy Katerine Bautista Boada

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  54. The adventure of the German student is a story that make us feel that all in our world is not like we think and it makes us realize that we believe it or not, the environment in which we are, affects our life and our behavior, just like Gottfried Wolfgang changed his behavior and lost his mind because of the French Revolution and all the chaos in which he lived.
    In this story we can see how important is to be in the real world with the feet on earth, because if we create worlds for ourselves we could realize that the perfect world does not exist and that could make us feel cheerless and without desire to live, also we have to be conscious that the excess and lack of moderation are bad for our lives, and the perfect example of this is the life of the German student who lost his way and spent his last years in a mad-house.

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  55. I am a bad reader, but I was really surprised when I read, it was striking to my mind. When I read the title I thought that it was about a fantastic adventure of a student, however, what I found was a story of fiction. This story is different from others, because sometimes when we read the tales they are like equals, they show us a happy ending.
    This story have been for me a first-rate tale due to we can write different tales, and it made me think that all the tales can have different ending. When I was at school, teacher taught me that every story ended with a happy ending and all of them had a princess and a blue prince. Today I realize that it was lie; I can find stories with different endings and different characters. The most beautiful thing is that we can enjoy and create literature, no matter the different thinking.

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  56. This short Tale was fascinating; from the beginning when I began reading the title I thought it was going to be the typical story of a person who has lived many exciting experiences with his friends in many trips, but the truth was really different of what I imagined; I never thought that this story was going to have mysterious, dark and interesting moments that caught my attention. From beginning to end since each one of the lines of this story had something exciting and interesting for example; the description of each one of the places and the feelings that each one of the characters expressed, all those things made me feel part of the story.
    On the other hand, I think that this story has all the elements needed to captivate the readers since it presents different aspects of daily life as are: love, mystery and evil; all in one content which makes the story becomes of special interest for young and adults people as deeply describe each one of the characters which makes the reader feel part of it when he reads.

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  58. The first time when I read the title, I thought about an incredible adventure full of emotion and fancy developed in a pretty setting maybe related to a young student experience exploring the world and looking for somebody. However, I never imagined this kind of plot. “The adventure of the German student” is that kind of stories that become striking and gets involve you from the beginning until the end, I have to say that I love this tales, which are full of surprising facts. On the other hand, talking about the story I felt sorry for Wolfgang, because he was a person who suffered a depression to the point to think about he had been chased by a kind of demon that wanted to secure his perdition and madness. Because of this, his close friends suggested him to change the environment so, he could find out a cure for his disease. Then, he moved to Paris, France and suddenly he began to have a recurrent dream with a pretty girl. One day, he was walking for the place and he saw the guillotine in action snatched the life of many people, so in this gloomy scene he saw the girl of his dreams. She was so unhappy and apparently, she was mourning someone, so he offered his help and friendship. They went together to Wolfgang’s place and he decided to talk to her about his dream, I could say that they had a lovely night and Wolfgang thought that he had found his true love. The next day he left the apartment and when he came back, he saw the girl slept in a strange position, he touched her and he noticed that she was dead. Horrified, he called the police, and they were perplex of seeing the girl that had been guillotined the previous day in that gloomy place. Wolfgang was astonished and he said that the devil has finally won by ensnaring him with that gorgeous girl. Finally, this story was amazing in all sense; unfortunately, Wolfgang did not have the end expected, but this tale leave us many things to think about what really happened and how the mind can play with us in a creepy way.

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  59. “The Adventure of the German Student”

    First, when I saw the title I said to myself: Oh my God another tiring tale! Because of the word GERMAN, it could be a political or military story. But when I began reading I enjoyed each phrase. Moreover, this is the only reading that catch my attention, that is to say that I never had read a tale telling the situation with a deep description, immersing the reader into the tale and imagine the scenes. I like so much the drama, suspense and intrigue contexts but before continuing talking about that I want to tell you there are some relevant aspects happened in Paris with Gottfried Wolfgang.

    All began when Gottfried traveled to France, he was a solitary person with an ardent temperament, as well as he was mad because of he thought that he was controlled by a mystical evil influence particularly he dreamed with a beautiful woman. But when he arrived to Paris the environment was not good because of the revolution.

    In addition, one night Wolfgang decided to go out to the Place de Grève and when he crossed the square he saw something weird that was shrank back. He felt terror, and afraid of this shadow. This shadow was a female dressed in black with a beautiful face who was at the foot of the dreaded guillotine. This woman was the same that he dreamt all nights.

    However, after they talked about the guillotine and another thing, Wolfgang invited her to his apartment; there Gottfried told her the story about his mysterious dream which she had possessed his heart before meeting her. Furthermore, they promised their love saying: “Let me be everything to you… I pledge myself to you forever”.

    Moreover, the next morning the German student left the room to look for a new big and comfortable apartment to be with this weird woman. But when he returned to his bedroom he found the woman with her head hanging over the bed, he spoke to her but did not happen anything. He asked for help and called the police. Then when they came into the room, they were afraid of the body’s woman because they did not know why the woman’s body came there if she was guillotined yesterday. Finally, Gottfried became crazy and he died in a mad – house.

    In my view, this kind of tale has a lot of points of view that depends on the reader. In my case, I think that is a real story because in many cases although some people believe that it does not happened is true, could be because of Gottfried was possessed, or maybe he played Ouija board, or could be it was a true legend that happened in a specific month like here in Colombia for instance in October or November where the human’s soul were in torment or perhaps Washington Irving wanted to express his life in a figurative way, that is to say when you love sincerely and you lost your soul mate, you become crazy and it is possible to imagine that after the loved person dies it continues with us, accompanying us in a spiritual way.

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  60. I am still thinking on what Mr. Irving was trying to state or prove in the tale “The adventure of the German student” Although arts and even more literature accept different reactions, opinions and arguments; I consider there is something behind the story, maybe a crucial hidden aspect to be found, but me, I could not figure it out. This is the reason why, sometimes, I feel frustrated when reading a book, story, poems, and stuff like that.
    However, as a general analysis one could say that the topics tackled –implicitly- in the story are; firstly, a critique of the bloody revolution; secondly, a lesson of how to deal with people suffering the sickness Wolfgang had; and finally, the existence of unnatural livings. To me it is interesting to extract the very particular situations from a story because that is what makes characters and events come alive in our minds
    To conclude, I just wonder if someone could firmly explain me the obvious dichotomy presented in the text: did the ghost woman truly appeared or it came from the German student’s imagination?

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  61. The Adventure of the German Student
    This awesome story catches my attention since it starts quoting the French Revolution, in that the external events related to important historical facts are really attractive and interesting for me. Besides, this story is not a lineal one, due to their events are consecutives, surprising and involve us in every scene or author’s occurrence. I really admire the way in which the author achieve a romantic moment full of compassion, sincerity and hope, in such as horrible, touching and hopeless place, in that it is known that the guillotine was one of the most bloody and atrocious ways that attempted against human lives who were trying to change the world for the benefit of all of us.
    The author tried to surprise us as he surprised his main character, a melancholic and perhaps mad student who changed his pessimistic thoughts, to think about beauty every night and every day, but what he could not imagine was that he could find this radiant face with such us beautiful and attractive characteristics in such as lifeless and melancholic place, and we neither imagined that.
    Now I understand why this is one of the most well know and reading story in American literature, due to involve in a fantastic story using realistic facts, that make us think if it is just fantasy or if it really happened. This story shows us that mystery and fantasy are always immerse in our lives, even if the facts are not as tragic as this one, eventhough we have to keep in mind that fantasy always overcome the reality and maybe people that we consider crazy are the most rational in our society.

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  63. THE ADVENTURES GERMAN STUDENT
    “The Adventure of the German student”” is a really good story, because we as readers can experiment different feelings; as curiosity for knowing if it was truth all that he lived or only psychological problems, happiness because he had found his “true love” and the end confusion, because we didn’t know how the corpse of that woman arrived at that place. With this story we have to reflect all of things that happen in order to understand the real purpose of the writer Washington Irving. On the other hand, I believe that the imagination, it is one of the most interesting thing that a person can have because with it, we can create unimaginable things that in our daily life is not possible that happen, but the problem is when our imagination does not allow us to analyze the differences between the real and not real things, it could be what happen with our main character Gottfried Wolfgang.

    Finally, we can compare this story with “The open window” by Saki, for the suspense and we don’t know what is going to happen; however, in the German student story, this is more descriptive that means the narrator give us a lot of details, in order to involve, in that way we can imagine where the story took place, the physical and psychological characteristics of the main characters.

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  64. “The adventure of the German student” by Washington Irving

    This piece of classical terror and suspense made on me a strong impression. I am not too passionate about literature but all the tales we have read during this course have allowed me to enter in an imaginary world where, as the characters, I also felt tricked, sad and terrified.

    In this particular tale, the Irving’s detailed descriptions were like a screen that showed me more than I wanted to see. For instance, the moment when the student discovers the presence of the woman sat in the steps of the scaffold. It is midnight, a stormy night with thunders and lightning and suddenly, when she looks at him, he finds the face of the beautiful woman he had dreamt every night! Undoubtedly, it was a moment of marvel and horror that catches the interest of the reader and make you shiver with fear. At that moment, I asked myself: how could he take that woman home? It is evident that she is not alive, she said to him clearly she did not have friends on earth and her home was a grave.

    The author achieves you feel inside the student and you are glad to see him in love with the stranger after knowing his melancholic and empty life but at the same time you feel that it will happen something tragic.

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  65. First of all, I want to congratulate Mr. Irving for writing that fantastic and amazing story expressing reality with fiction, I mean, the human with the spiritual facts. Those incredible stories make me think that in this life everything is spiritual because I have experienced similar things as the German student's case. That is not a part of my imagination, simply is real. It is interesting to know how people can accept these different things as strange phenomena. Obviously, humans do not see in the same way the physical and spiritual facts. No one can see the beautiful presence of God but of course we can feel him.

    To tell you the truth, when I read at the first time the title “The adventure of the German student” I supposed that was a dramatic story where a young man suffers severe problems with drugs, alcohol that with a dangerous mental state. In fact, is a kind of adolescent living a difficult social and emotional period affecting his family and his friends. But as we already know it is completely different because actually the German student called Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family with a visionary and enthusiastic character. Of course, he had an evil spirit producing the most terrible effects. Perhaps Gottfried Wolfgang looked to be fine physically but not spiritually.That usually happens. If our soul has problems, evil spirits can attack us as a spiritual possession. By the way, this kind of possession can be the cause of illnesses or mental disorders as the case of the German with his unhealthy appetite of female beauty.

    Before to conclude, I accept as true this kind of stories where at the end of the tale Gottfried Wolfgang was possessed with a malicious spirit or demon that had stolen the dead body, in effect, his soul. Unfortunately, he died in a mad-house, so the evil spirit took his passion after death. I invite everybody to read this incredible story not only to provoke fear; the idea is to ponder which real spirits there are in our minds affecting everything in our life. Let’s start to think!

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  66. I liked the story and I decided to share a short summary to invite you to read the whole tale. It begins with a German student called Gottfied Wolfgang, a person with a mental illness, who lives in an imaginary world far from one, an intelligent, solitary and obsessive person. Basically, the story takes place and action in a stormy night when Gottfied Wolfgang meets a beautiful and perfect young woman that according to him, it was the woman of his dreams. She seemed to be unprotected and lost, so he decides to offer his help and his house. There, he confesses his love to her, the next day while he was returning home from searching a place to live together, he realizes that his love is dead. Immediately, he calls the police, in this arrival, the police tells him how that woman was guillotined the day before; at that time, this German student says that the devil was chasing after him.

    Now, talking critically about “The adventure of the German student” I would like to say that the context of the tale is clearly settled what makes anyone imagine the main characters and different aspects of the story in a given epoch: the French revolution.

    Added to this, I consider what the author wants to obtain with the story is to confuse the public. Washington could be mysterious and funny mixing fiction and fear, even; we can imagine the guillotine and the public executions done at that period of history. I admit that I felt nervous when reading the story. I hope you have the chance to read it! Believe me, it is worth.

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  67. The adventure of the German student.
    At the beginning of the story, when I read the title, I imaged a student, maybe a child who liked playing all kind of games after classes and had many adventures through the forest and streams, looking for new things, could be a treasure, animals or who helped somebody in any difficult situation. But, when I started the reading, I realized that it was a different story what I had in my mind.
    Firstly, the main character suffered a mental illness his name was Gottfried Wolfang, he had an imaginative and fanciful mind and not like a child who invents stories to transform a lie into true. This state of mental malady maybe had its cause in the uncountable books he read in the libraries so, it could affect his thought and feelings as the story of “Don Quixote”.
    I consider, it is common that a person who imaged all the time a situation or a person, he began to believe all is happening is real, as Gottfried who dreamed every day about a beautiful woman and he felt in love without having known her before. In my opinion, about how the dead woman appeared in Wolfang’s bed is not an absolute mystery, because I think he was the person who carried the corpse to his bedroom without having realized she was dead, he gave life to her in his mind. In a part of the text it said: “He supported her faltering steps across the Pont Neuf” so, he had to carry the woman because she could not walk and to avoid the real situation he imaged she was sad and soaked by the rain, in this way Wolfang had to help her. That is my opinion about the main mystery of the story.
    In conclusion, I can say the story is interesting and mysterious, it allowed the reader to be in touch and want to know since the beginning what will come at the end.

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  68. “THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT”
    When reading the story “the adventure of the German student” it was a very nice moment, because it begins with a very detailed description of the place and the environment of the location which is easy for the reader to follow a sequence and do not get lost. Consequently, the story shows the life of a solitary, shy and ignorant boy around the world. However, he was passionate admirer of female beauty. What I can infer about it, is that such situation happened to him in order to make him more aware about the reality of the world. Also, I would say that many of the scenes are excessive fiction because it is unbelievable that somebody facing horrific situations can continuo acting in a calmed way. Furthermore, what I found the most surprising is that the young boy admired a woman that he did not know and also that appeared suddenly in a very mysterious way. If I were that young boy, at first time I found the guillotine I had fled the place to look for someone to tell such mysterious fact.
    In a general view of the story, it was easy to understand and I could almost appreciate the scenes due to the description of the situations. In addition, I became more familiarized with it after listening it in Spanish with the real effects and sounds.

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  69. It is an interesting, exciting and intriguing story of a young German student who arrived in Paris in times of The French Revolution. Gottfried Wolfgang lives his most dreadful experience in which delirium, insanity and isolation conspire against him. Hence, an intrinsic battle takes place inside his head and as a result, he becomes a psycho who keeps the memory of a murder that he never committed but became his worst nightmare for the rest of his despondent life.
    Irving`s narrative empowers the reader to imagine every single detail of the story. I really like the way the author describes the characters and their actions, it is amazing how from the beginning you can have a brief idea of what is going to happen later. Whether the final can be analysed from Irving’s perspective or another, it keeps a magic that makes your mind become part of that adventure.

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  70. Firts of all, I would like to say this is a magnificent story,I really like it, the gloomy sense that Washington Irving impress in the story totally blows my head, the first look I took at the tittle I thought, well this is gonna be about a German student which is going to experience an incident that is going to change his life, and so the sory is, the maccabre overtone of the story was what I never expected and also is the side I like the most. This narration involves a maccabre acent in its lines since the begining til the end, nice point, the German student Gottfried Wolfgang was sorround by a ghoul spirit as the narrator of the tale suggested, Gottfried Wolfgang was lonely and had a very high level of imagination which was like a disease, besides he really like to read books about spiritual essences and he spent many hours studying and researching about this particular topic. Gottfried Wolfgang in his mind had imagined a very gorgeous girl quiet similar to him in loneliness attitude, he never stopped thinking about this special picture, he regarded at it till the point he became very obsessed with this woman, the last part consumates the never expected, the German student dreams coming true, it is a mixture of love and gloom of a romantic ink, then complemented with a macabre and spine-chilling ink colour in the very end, this story is really amazing.

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  71. I think that “The adventure of the German student” written by Washington Irvin is an interesting and amazing story, that talks about Wolfgang’s life and all the things that happened on his mind. Wolfgang was a German student, he was a busy person who liked studying hard and then he started having a secluded life due to his fanciful speculation which caused his imagination diseased. It talks about the girl he met, his feelings for that girl and it showed that Wolfgang had the necessity for being with a person, especially with a girl. He accepted her in his life, he wanted that they were just one; he did not think of himself but unfortunately that girl was just an illusion for Wolfgang, she died and then he died too.
    When I read the title of the story I thought it was about a story similar to “The adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Twain. So, I started reading, and then I realized that it was a story of suspense, I continued reading, I took into account each detail of the author, and I confess that that there were moments of the story that I felt frightened and sometimes I stood on end or I felt nervous.
    On my point of view, liked the way the author tells the story and how he can carry us to imagine and feel many things with his words. Although I do not like reading I had realized, the more I read those kinds of stories, the more I am interested on and I do not see it like an assignment.

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  72. “THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT”
    “The adventure of the German student” is a good story. I imagined a lot of things about it when I first read the title. For instance I thought it was a romantic story, but when I started reading I discovered a different kind of story, a story full of mystery and strange events that engaged us and let us think about whether or not those events were true, or just the consequence of an illness.
    My attention was always centred on the story, reading carefully how the author expressed in a nicety way those events. Additionally, it is great to find those kind of stories in which we feel fear when reading and feel that we cannot stop. Moreover, at the end of the story, it gave us different impressions to understand it either in a real or in an unreal way.
    The author offered us the chance to think about what really happened with that enigmatic woman that appeared last night and the following day, but also let us to analyse the time of the French revolution in which it was common to find people with traumas because of there were frequent to see a lot of people being decapitated, or assume that the main character (Gottfried Wolfgang) had a mental disease and he reliable imagined that, as well as, he will have to live for a long time in a mental hospital. Certainly, “The adventure of the German student” was a story that really caught the reader’s attention.

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  73. “The Adventure of the German Student"

    Before reading the title of this story I had many ideas. I thought of adventure, journeys, and fantasy. I also thought about a story or an event which would elevate my mind and anticipate any event through this tale. Anyone who hears the word adventure thinks about extraordinary challenges.

    What actually happened was a misrepresentation with regards to the title that was being provided by the author. For me, this story is a misleading tale, because the title does not allow the reader to discern the problem from the solution. In other words, when we read the title of a story we can possibly understand what will happen and what the problem, topic or theme will be.
    This story is set in revolutionary France, during the bloody period of the guillotine and executions were carried out in public. Moreover, it gives us the opportunity to know the melancholy experienced by a German student who was about to undergo one of the strangest experiences. In the description of this tale the narrator plays a fundamental role, because his details immerse the reader into believing that everything is real. This German student began to dream of a woman’s face; until enveloped in the Parisian darkness. “The face appears before the eyes of the dreamer”

    Now, I evoke a scene that called my attention. With the help of my imagination and my mind I could build that moment also with the full description done by the narrator. It was when the young man discovered the presence of the woman sitting on the steps. It was midnight, it was raining and the storm began. When she looks at him and sees his face. "The face he dreamed every night”

    To tell you the truth, this was a really good tale. I felt inside this story; nevertheless, at the end I felt disappointed and betrayed as a reader because the author forgot what the main objective of a title is, (to make known the name or subject of a book.)

    Personally, I am not interested in this kind of stories; however, some moments of the story made me feel inside the tale, but, as a reader, I expected to find what the title offered me.

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  74. “The Adventure of the German Student”.

    First of all I have to say that when I read the title, it gave me the impression it was be a different story, for me the title was clear because of the words used by the author: adventure and student. I imagined happy events lived by a student maybe with friends at the school; but, when I read the text I realized it was a different plot, taking into account first of all the description of the main character Gottfried Wolfgang and the context he was sited.

    Gottfried a young man with a singular imagination, began to build in his mind other world which experimented love maybe to escape from the obscure society that surrounded him, a society where the blood scenes became in a normal environment for the revolution in that time; but also his personality carried him to an abysm that never could avoid. Another characteristic was the way Wolfgang spent most of the time reading literary books that influenced his mind and body, but I did not understand how his friends thought he would found any cure for his mental illness in a context like that.

    To conclude, I think the story connects the author’s feelings when he dreamt the beautiful woman every day; also, he wanted to show us how our fears and imagination can become real as happened to Gottfried who thought an evil spirit wanted to ensnare him and at the end he found the madness and the death too.
    Fabiola.

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  75. “The adventure of the German student” by Washington Irving.

    First of all, I would like to say when I read the title I never imagined this story was a horror tale, which are my favorites, I love everything related to horror, such as: films, stories and documental programs; that is to say I liked so much this tale because of the weft on which is enfolded Gottfried, the main character of this story.

    On the one hand, I want to emphasize in the creativity of Washington Irving that mixed madness, love and beauty in a story that can be summarized in the word “ adventure”. Every person that read the title can image another thing of the story and never a story filled with terror, a ghost and fear.

    To conclude, I have to say this: “surprising ending of this tale”, for the contrast of the title and the content of the story. Indeed, when I finished to read it was so fruitful for me to do the exercise to image every detail trough the reading and I was so surprised how Gottfried Wolfang was not afraid about the woman, for the condition and the situation how he found her; on the contrary he was really enchanted by her beauty. I want to say the part of the story that caught my attention the most was when the head of the woman rolled on the floor; I imagined that and it was so frightening.

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  76. “THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT”

    Comment by: Yuly Paola Prada C…

    First of all, I would like to put into words that the first idea that came to my mind towards the meaning of the title was a wonderful story about a young man who had lived exciting and fantastic experiences as a student in a fun place and he hoped sharing with his friends. However, the real context of this story was what I did not expect, because it refers just the opposite. It involves a series of dark situations lived by a German student in a central moment of his life which took place in Paris in a period known as the French revolution.

    Taking into account those several aspects mentioned before, this narration shows us a boy passionate about the reading of gloomy and mysterious books which caused some significant reactions into the student personality. As a matter of fact, this success emphasizes on certain negative features such as the strange behaviors of the boy and the unreal moments he created in his mind which he brought into the reality.

    To sum up, I can infer each one of those events gives us a notion of our real state; it is to say that human being is conditioned upon his own experiences lived in the surrounding he moves every day.

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  77. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    At the beginning when I read the tittle, I was very motivated because of I wanted to know what was the story about. Before staring reading I thought about an adventure of a German student in an amazing place full of magic things, people, and he, a German who took the risk to explore it, but when I started reading I realized it was a different story that really caught my attention and encouraged me to continue reading.

    Actually, I read other kind of stories like documentary books; indeed my favorite writer is German Castro Caicedo. However, while I was reading I discovered an interesting plot developed in a stormy night in Paris, and also surprised by the author’s style used at the moment of describing every single detail and how the facts happened, the author made me feel inside the story, although, I wanted to know more about Wolfgang and if that girl was real or she was just a ghost with a very unexpected end.

    In conclusion, this story made me think and discuss with my classmates hearing their different but true points of view about it. Really, I am not sure yet what to think about this end full of mystery and things to be solved.

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  78. “THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT”

    The story is told by an external narrator “the old gentleman with the haunted head” who knows everything about the characters and the events. All the episodes occurred at the beginning of the epoch of terror during the French Revolution. The setting “great libraries of Paris, those catacombs of departed authors, the room of the student and the stormy night and the Reign of Terror”; contributes to draw the necessary environment in which the incidents take place. Those scenes of butchery and cruelty cause Wolfgang to immerse himself into his dark world of imagination.

    The storyteller begins by speaking about the moment when striking happenings define the climax of the tale, and then, he considers important to refer the main character in order to take the reader into a coherent context. According to this part, the origin of that young man is not relevant, because that could happen to whomever. In fact, the tale is built using many elements that enrich the space, carrying the audience to where he wants to.
    In conclusion, according to the setting, there is not a better place to grow a terror fiction than the center of public executions, where psycho Parisian enjoyed when Guillotine fell without mercy on the neck of condemned citizens.

    Besides, I interpret the purpose of the author is to warn us about the danger of reading too much dark or mystical literature that can consume even our souls. In religious terms, an eager learner who finds interesting but contradictory theories to devour will allow the evil to take possession of him. The writer is enough astute to lead the reader to a deep discussion to convince the interlocutor about the truthfulness of facts presented, due to who brings us the knowledge is a “possessed old gentleman”.

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  79. Nataly Guarín:
    "The Adventure Of The German Student"
    By Washington Irving´s story.
    first of all, I have to say that I liked this story so much because of its enriching details about the German students’ behavior and also about the influence that the environment had in that human being’s relationships, In addition I would like to express that all these aspects can generate a big damage in a person’s health ,behavior, or personality influenced by social, religious, political and also because of the society.(The French Revolution).
    The beginning of the story gave me a brief or idea about which was going to be the plot or events related with the tale or the rest of the story, with important information that helped me to had a better understanding and know each detail of it, all those aspects were relevant at the moment of reading this tale, with this I could live the story and imagine the setting and everything . At the end of this tale, the writer made a short description that showed us about "Gottfried Wolfgang’s life before going to live at “Paris” aspects that helped me as a reader to understand better all this.
    Throughout the development of the story becomes evident all the factors and aspects that affected Wolfgang's life ,the unreasonable behavior that was increasing more and more ,it was hard to recognize that he found himself in an awful and detestable situation all those facts that at the end leads this student to end his life in a madhouse.
    It is important to say that the intelligence and capacity of us as human beings is endless, and that we have to analyze our human behavior, personality and interpersonal relationships, we have to consider each one of those aspects and organize our way to live with strategies to succeed in life without losing our path.

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  80. University of Pamplona
    The adventure of German student
    Carol Paola Duque

    Firstly, I should give my opinion about the first impression I got when reading the title: a huge amount of ideas jumped into my mind, as well as tons of manifold ‘’adventures’’ (funny ones) experienced by our German student. But, it happened that reality was a little bit unlike.
    First, the setting was not exactly in Germany, but in Paris, the city, witness of all the strange events that occurred to our story’s main character.
    Nevertheless, and regardless where the plot took place, I found the plot amazingly stunning, owing to all the unexpected and inexplicable facts that turned up the story from being a normal ‘’somebody’s life story’’, to get into a mystery, horror, suspense and drama movie (in my mind).
    Moreover, I must add that this type of works allow me to ‘’live’’ the write up, to picture every single word in my imagination, to bring up feelings I had never experienced and to feel ‘’thirsty’’ of more. Also, although the ending was sort of confusing, because I did not get to know who that woman really was, or WHY she appeared in his dreams before knowing her, I have to say that was an extra ingredient for giving more freedom to my thoughts.
    Last but not least, I must say that I feel glad to find myself enjoying reading, and expecting more and more after every single story.

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  81. Firstly, I would like to say that my first impression when I read the title was: just another nice, happy and common boring kid story where a German student has fun with his friends in a summer time, but when I read the first page I realized that it was complete different from what I thought.

    To better understand what happened to me while I read the story, I just will say that the story caught my attention more and more as I read, not just because it was a horror story, but for the great descriptions of the backgrounds, characters and events, that create a fantastic drama story that involved me completely while I read.

    To conclude, I am glad to say that the more I read this kind of endings more I like it, because this bring you the opportunity to think about hundred of things, it give you an awesome freedom to your thoughts, sometimes making you think about WHY!!!

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  82. “The adventure of the German student “
    By: Washington Irving

    This wonderful and amazing story full of adventure, suspense,and irony was written by the hand of Washington Irving. This author is known around the world for his masterpiece “RIP VAN WINKLE” and other stories, not only in the American literature, but also in the literature´s world whole in .Furthermore,Irving was credited as the first American Man of Letters, and the first to earn his living solely by his pen.

    This story has the details for catching the reader´s attention;it focuses on a young German student who was born in a good family but with an enthusiastic character and uncommon vision of his own world.Gottfried the major character of this exciting reading; was a sensitive, depressed, and solitary man, enclosing in his own desolation and perturbed because of his diseased mind and the singular theories as well as philosophic doctrines that at that time took position in the humanity. Hence, his friends determined that the best thing for him would be a change of scene and remaining in Paris, where this story took part in. There, at the breaking out of revolution, in this romantic and amazing city, the story turned away gloomy, understandable and dazzling when Gottfried found a pale, haggard but beautiful woman; it was a presence from his dreams, operating merely upon his imagination, falling in love with each other and whose influence just would be a dreadful ghost hanging over him and who was guillotined days before for the regimen by unknown causes.

    To conclude, I just wonder about this great tale, because it was an uncommon literature work that through the dark and creative imagination of the writer, was able to get deep inside of the reader´s real perceptions, and doubting for real facts in personal’s point of view. In my opinion, this is a master piece of horror, because it is able to insight our minds as readers, and to make us think and reflect about all the facts that put the characters in such a confusing situations. I highly enjoyed when reading and analyzing all the facts were given there, and when trying to discover WHY the story turned into a mysterious end.

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  83. The adventure of the German student

    Gottfried Wolfgang was in a foreign country, because he was having troubles in his own home, his friends thought the change of environment could help him, so he was sent to Paris, a place in permanent transformation caused by the French revolution. Because of course, if you have a friend who is losing his mind the best decision to make is to send your troubled friend to a pacific place where he could rest for a while, but his friends decided to do the exact opposite, they sent Wolfgang to a place where everyone was involved in a war. He was obsessed from the beginning with death, he loved that obscured literature, he could not think of anything else, he had a different mind.

    I believe this is the story of a mad man, the illness began when he started to read the wrong books, those books full of blood and death took him to a place infested by darkness and sorrow, there he stood at the beginning, when he was sent to Paris he saw the carnage that was going on there, the hundreds of people being guillotined by their ideas, that created an indelible scar on his heart and mind. The death, the books and his sensitive mind took him to a place in which his only refuge was the imaginary love of a woman, one day he dreamt of a girl, he felt in love with her immediately, that face was not clear as it happens in most dreams, but for him she was a real as himself. One day he saw a beautiful woman being murdered in the Plaza, he was shocked, during the night he decided to go and find that woman, believing that for sure, that was the woman he has dreamt of, in the middle of his shock he took her home, he was having an attack, he had lost all senses, he obviously had no idea of what he was doing, he confessed his love to the beautiful corpse and spent the night with her, not knowingly of course, that the life had run out of that body hours ago. In the morning when he was happy having found what he thought he never needed, he went out, and when he came back, confused by all that had happened, deforming every act of the last night, he saw his bride dead, headless on his bed. That was the day his sanity died along with the woman he loved.

    The first moment I read the title I was, to tell you the truth, not very attracted to it, I thought it was a travelling story and quite honestly I am not the biggest fan of those. But as the story continued I started to get more and more interested in it, at the beginning I could not stop thinking about what was going to happen with the German student being so troubled-minded, I thought he was going to be a victim of his own illness. I was fascinated with the story, having Irving Washington the relevance he has for English literature, it is only understandable why this story is so entertaining, we will never know what really happened and that tiny doubt that echoes in the back of our minds are the rests of the creative mind of a great writer, this sort of stories are the ones that actually make you fall in love with literature and imagining what else you can learn and what else you will never know is an exciting adventure.

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  84. The Adventure of the German Student’s Comment


    Once I read the title of Washington Irving’s story “The Adventure of the German Student”, many adventure images came to my mind, especially those related to the jungle, wild animals, danger, fire, like in Indiana Jones’ film. Nevertheless, this German student’s adventure was totally the opposite.

    Before giving my point of view, I want to briefly describe the main content of this story which is starring by Gottfried Wolfgang, an intelligent but shy German student who arrives to Paris influenced by his friends. Paris is involved in The French Revolution times, a very difficult context that affects Wolfgang both physically and psychologically. Wolfgang decides to stay in his apartment but loneliness produces an extraordinary effect in his mind: he starts dreaming with a beautiful woman that creeps into his mind by day and night. One night, while he was returning to his apartment he sees a woman dressed in black near to the guillotine. He offers her his help and when she looks at him, he notices that she is the woman of his dreams and falls in love immediately. Next day, after declaring each other eternal love, Wolfgang finds his bride dead on his bed; he calls the police and they tell him that actually, she had died the previous day. As a result, Wolfgang instantly goes crazy.

    This is a really mysterious and intense plot that keeps the reader’s attention from the beginning to the end. There are many hypotheses around this story, and mine is that Wolfgang suffered a mental illness that accompanied by the bloody environment of the French Revolution immersed him in an imaginary world that made him think that the guillotined girl was alive. I really enjoyed reading this short-story since Washington Irving focuses on human’s brain functionality and the strong impact that a nasty environment has in people´s interpersonal relationships and mental health.

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  85. “The adventure of the German Student”

    First of all, I would like to say that I am not passionate about literature, but I like reading stories about love and mystery, particularly the last one. When I read the title “The Adventure of the German Student” I supposed it was about the craziest adventures of a young man in another country, however; when I started reading it, it was something totally different to what I expected. Generally speaking, I really loved the way the author described every single detail; it was perfect, indeed I could feel every moment in the story as if I was there. In addition, one of the aspects that why I really loved was the mixture between love and mystery which created a fantastic story.

    Talking about the content I consider the author wanted to present the social situation in France at that time; for instance, Wolfgang was a man who was sick about the unfairness of society, thus, he suffered a mental illness which was reflected on his feelings like loneliness, sadness and depression. As a result, he created another world where he used to dream about his perfect woman; suddenly, Wolfgang was so immersed in this imaginary world trying to find her since he lost his sanity and his sense of reality.

    To sum up, “The Adventure of the German Student” was a fast moving story which not only let me understand the role of society in people’s behavior and personality but also let me think about the power of human mind; in fact, what really scared me was the ability the human mind has to play with our emotions and thoughts in different ways. Finally, I would like to read more stories like this; because it allows me to make my own conclusion about any topic. Now I would like to invite all people to read this amazing story, I am sure it will catch their attention.

    Johana Serrano


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  86. Comment
    “The adventure of the German student”
    How do not we go crazy in a world full of so much falsehood, where selfishness reigns and misery abounds? Many times we seek refuge in what we consider our own world in order to achieve escaping from a reality that is often cruel. As it happened with this youth, a loner, who lived a life a little apart from society. Gottfried Wolfgang decided to enclose in a universe in which he hungrily devoured books, and these readings are precisely those that lead him to believe in the existence of an alternative imaginary world different from the real one. We could say that therein lies his belief that upon him there was an evil influence that a demon or spirit sought possession and to astray him.
    He was a completely despondent and depressed being, but with a certain interest in beauty and love. He decided to travel to a completely foreign country under the excuse of finding some peace for his troubled mind, but really his goal was to find true love. Many might wonder how it is possible to dream every night of a person who has never been seen in real life, perhaps a twist of fate or mere coincidence of life. As our protagonist (Wolfgang) who during one of his dreams saw a female face of extraordinary beauty, to whom he had never perceived physically. So powerful was the impression received, that he fell passionately in love with this imaginary shadow. I would like to give my humble opinion about such an absurd and magnificent lie, maybe this young man could witness the moment when the woman was being guillotined, and this fact produced a trauma that shocked his life.
    This terrible event and the possible evil influence that sought to take over his life, produced in him a story where he found the love of his life, but hard and shocking resulted to Wolfgang the fact that everything was created by his imaginative mind; this confirmed his theory that a demon possessed his life.
    “The adventure of the German student” is an interesting tale that allows the readers’ imagination anticipates the events. Throughout the story few details of the true origin of the mystery woman are revealed. During the narrative, we are given clues that reveal to us that what Gottfried perceives as reality is just a distortion of it. Thus, when Gottfried asks the woman if she had a home, she responds, “yes in the grave” here we imagine she did not have any place where to go. At the hotel, the portress did not represent a source of information, because she just glanced up the couple. If he had realized the real situation he had called the police in that moment. Generally speaking, it is a horror story that states how a reserved person could became a gloomy, also the author attempt to reveal the danger of immersing in a godless world. The idea expressed by the author is not to leave our principles by copying absurd ideals proposed by others.
    Jennifer Bautista Peñaloza

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  87. When I read the title of this tale “The adventure of the German student” I imagined a story of a guy travelling around the world and having amazing moments meeting places and people or something like that, but never a story like this one. So I must congratulate the author for having such a great imagination and for the way how he caught my attention during the whole story; however, I have to say that although I liked the story a lot, I wish there was more information in some parts, for instance, it would have been great to know, what happened in the madhouse? Or, why the mysterious woman was killed? And, what is her story? Because maybe both stories are connected and that is why she appeared in Wolfgang dreams, I do not know, but that would be interesting, because that is what makes characters and facts come alive in our minds.

    It is a captivating story but lots of doubts come to my mind, for instance: the woman was indeed a reanimated corpse sent specifically to ensnare Wolfgang’s soul, or was the woman ever truly alive in Wolfgang’s presence? Or, due to his necrophilia tendencies, could he have brought the body and imagined it alive? I do not know, but this is the kind of stories that arouse my imagination and let me with lot of questions, so I would try not to be so rational to answer them and just let my mind fly, because if I think so much about this, terror starts to lose meaning as the source of all this information appears to have a mental illness.

    Finally, I have to say that the whole story and mainly the ending were highly fascinating, sad and frightening; so I absolutely loved it. In fact, horror stories are my favorites so I could easily continue reading tales like this one; actually, I would love to watch a story like this one on TV, it would be great to see the woman’s head rolling on the floor jajaja, I really love this genre. however, if something like this happen to me I guess it would drive me crazy too, it is kind of hard but fun to imagine this story in a real context.

    PD: this is a proof of what Benedetti says about love and madness; “Love is blind and is always accompanied by Madness”

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  88. “The Adventure of the German Student” was a mystery story which was really amazing and enjoyable to read. I consider it is a great work, because, first of all the author presents some real facts that happened during the French Revolution. At that time people was executed in the guillotine and it was common to find misery and human bodies in the streets. I love the way how the author mixes the real events with the fanciful speculations on spiritual scenes of a German Student called Gottfried Wolfgang.

    I think that the theme of this story is the sick society possessed by evil. The political and philosophical theories through the Revolution influenced people to become in horrible murders able to kill women and children. The principal character for example, got sick because he spent too much time studying at libraries from Paris, but at the same time the darkness of the death caught him, and transformed him in a monster guided by his instincts.

    Wolfgang was obsessed by women’s beauty, because when he was in the solitude of his room, he used to lose himself in dreams and faces of women he had seen. For me, when he found the woman in the Place the Greve, the square where public executions were done, she was already dead. Wolfgang’s imagination convinced him that she was the woman he had dreamed about. She was beautiful; she had pale face and brilliant eyes. Maybe he took her to his home. I can say this because the portress saw the woman, so, she was a real body, and also the police recognized it was the woman who had been executed the last night. The most probable is that he had a necrophilia act and he slept with her and imagined all the conversation.

    To sum up, the author wanted to represent the mistreatment of woman by men at that period, and the cruelty of revolutionaries who seemed to be possessed by supernatural spirits. He used the German Student in order to explain how the evil inside us can get out and make us to do things we have never imagined. It is the instinct that make that sometimes human beings act such as animals.

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  89. At the beginning the title "The Adventure of the German Student" made me think about other kind of adventures, maybe the main character was in the jungle, I imagined something like Robin Hood or a man who fought with ferocious wild animals, cannibals or any UFO. When I continued reading I realized it had absolutely nothing related to the real meaning of the story. This tale is in my opinion, the best story I have read so far in the literature class. Even when the story of "Bill” touches deeply people’s feelings, "The Adventure of the German student" lets our imagination run wild so much that I could create in my mind any kind of reasons and arguments and make an analysis of the changes, movements and key details in the story, imagining how it could end, I could not imagine how he would wake up one day and realize that the woman he thought to be his true love, in fact, she was a corpse or how a man who spent hours and hours in a library researching about evil topics can just think about creating a world where you want to find love. Maybe, he was so horrified with the real world and specifically with the situation of violence in his environment that he wanted to find a way out, or simply, he just needed a little of affection and he was looking for someone to talk to.

    Otherwise, in the story is clearly reflected the power of influence that generates the mind, the society and environment in our actions and emotions, Wolfgang was closed in on himself and so obsessed with dark issues that this situation produced him a serious damage in his mental health, provoking in his life feelings of loneliness, isolation and despair; all those emotions forced him to create a parallel world. A world where he could have what he wanted the most in the middle of his solitude: true love; an absurd world for many, but, so real and captivating for him, that at the end, it was really difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

    In general, this horror story captivated me completely, it is important to say that the author knew how to fascinate the reader with a story full of mystery and many unanswered questions such as what really happened, if there was any evil possession, perhaps, it was Wolfgang who imagined all, or possibly all the facts came from the imagination of the poor elderly man in the sanatorium; it is a question that leaves something unfinished, but, fortunately it benefits the imagination, giving to the reader the opportunity to visualize what we want. This trouble is not in vain, definitely this is a reading that as the main character taught us, and Saint Teresa said, sometimes it is necessary to let the madwoman of the house be.

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  90. Reading “The Adventure of the German Student” reminded me how people can often be immersed in their own solitude, and how them in their disturbed assumption of life, arrive to see in imagination the easier resolution to all their judgments of existence.


    Wolfgang Gottfried is in my opinion, the typical person who is constantly searching for the way to give sense to their life because living “the normal one” can be often boring or out of their concept of happiness; because it is much better to be considered crazy than following the repetitive costumes of everyone. Sometimes however, this search for distinction surpasses the lines of reason and turn into extra-imagination. I will consider in this occasion the word “madness” exaggerated and out of the context since thinking differently or changing the assumption we have about existence does not exactly mean, that we are mad. Thus, when I read the first paragraph of this short story, I immediately felt identified with the central character, not because of his weird likes for speculative doctrines about spiritual essences, but for his intense force of imagination that reminded me the feeling of not understanding the own world and the others’ one. It was precisely what Wolfgang did: trying always to give himself the hard and almost impossible work of comprehending everything about and around him because he did not believe nor in destiny nor in faith, but in what he could appreciate and turn into real. It is in this part of the story when the imagination plays a crucial role because at this stage of discovering the sense of living, dreams come to us sometimes with a strong feeling of loneliness, boredom and sadness. Suddenly, we do not trust the others and create an imaginary picture of perfection that furthermore makes us to invent a universe that is not always shared to those around us. And then, complications appear and society judges. That is why Wolfgang was believed to have a mental illness: it was his imagination what sustained all those creations in his mind that at the end gave him the misconception of being bewildered.

    Briefly, I still consider that he was not mad: he only imagined more than others; his imagination was in this occasion cruel to him and did not accomplish its real role. Sometimes, unreal mental creations surpass the borders of reasonable thinking since people forgot how to live brilliantly and they decided to become judges of the world because of their incapability to live with acceptance. Judging and after resorting to imagination, they search for a perfection that fill all the empty spaces they have in every one of their days. At the end, what they do not know is that the most they imagine, the most shocking the reality will be.

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  91. Nowadays the world is full of people that believe just in what science can prove. But what about those real and gloomy situations that some people have experienced without any explanation? Can we classify them as the result of a sick mind just because science cannot demonstrate their cause? Not because science cannot give an answer, we are going to ignore those inexplicable and incomprehensible stories that more than one have lived. We cannot just protect us with the shield of incredulity, if there is a God, the existence of a malevolent force cannot be denied.
    Someone could say that Wolfgan’s dreams were just a product of his imagination; I’m not too sure about that, but if there is something that I can affirm is the fact that our imagination is so powerful that make us feel real emotions, or even more, it allows us to make dreams come true. We cannot imagine how incredible our brain is and all the incredible things that we can do through the imagination. Nobody can say the real cause of Wolfgan’s hallucination, it could have been a creation of his mind, or in fact, he was right and it was a dark presence who wanted to destroy him. However, it does not matter the effort made to find out the answer but what we decide to believe. I can believe that he was a madman, but instead of that I decide to believe in Wolfgan’s arguments, I prefer to believe that he was not crazy but that the real problem was that unfortunately he was pursued by something malign that made him have strange dreams, dreams that were too strong to be assimilated by normal people, and this made him different from the others.

    In conclusion, this story made me think about the fact that sometimes we judge other people just because their way of thinking is different from ours or just because they do not act as “normal” people would do, but most of the time we are not able to going further of what we can appreciate and see that each one is different, and that in some way each one of us has a little of madness inside.

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  92. Firstly, The Adventures of a German Student is a very mysterious and analytical story which contains the essential elements to make a narration more scary, interesting and seductive for the reader; therefore, this is a set of enigmas allowing the reader constructs his/her own hypotheses to understand the origins and consequences of the climax, and also to give it credibility since according to the last lines, it seems to show us this is a real story told by an old-man who knew the main character: Gottfried Wolfgang.

    Secondly, it is quite important to state that despite the fact the sequence and the setting were well described adding each detail to take the reader to the author’s mind, the dialogues require more information demonstrating what the characters expressed to not make hypotheses about why they reacted in that way. Additionally, I liked the author’s style to write the characteristics of Wolfgang using an appropriate vocabulary.

    Finally, this Irving’s work has captivated me; indeed, once it provoked my heart stopped for a second when I read “and the head rolled on the floor!”, consequently, the way the author detailed the setting allows us imagine in a easier way how the place, the moment, the plot and the characters reactions were described.

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  93. Comment by Alexandra González

    “The Adventure of the German Student” by Washington Irving.

    Is it possible to wake up one day and realize that you have spent your night with a decapitated person by your side? That was the most terrible event which made Mr. Wolfgang losing his sanity and turn him into a sick man private of his freedom for the rest of his lonely life.
    “The Adventure of the German Student”, It is a short horror tale written by the author Washington Irving, that tells the story of a young student Gottfried Wolfgang, who went to Paris during the French Revolution in order to relax his disturbed mind and regain his health. But such a trip had the opposite effect in his life. As a lover of female beauty Mr. Wolfgang fell in love with a strange woman who seemed have appeared from one of his most intense dreams, a woman who would become into his traveling ticket to a world of madness from which there was no return.

    I actually admire how Mr. Irving plays with the reader’s imagination making us believe that we would read about a funny adventure and then taking us into a world full of darkness, sickness and fears; also how this authentic author use this character Mr. Wolfgang as a puppet to make us feel horrified and kind of confused, without mentioning that just a skillful mind as Mr. Irving’s one can put a normal person sleeping with a guillotined corpse unaware of such an eventuality. That is why I consider this short story a masterpiece of terror; the kind of story one should read before going to bed.

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  94. Gottfried Wolfgang: Solitude, Love and Madness

    Washington Irving is one of the most important American writers as he was the first author who brought the American literature to Europe. Besides, he wrote great works such as History of New York, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey, History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus and Tales of a Traveller. As regard “The Adventure of the German Student”, it is part of a collection of essays called Tales of a Traveller written in 1824. This tale took place in a revolutionary Paris and told the German collegiate’s story who was always solitary and had an impaired health. Wolfgang arrived at that city to find a cure to a really strange mental malady that made him hallucinate and create imaginary situations, which exceeded the real world. One night, he was walking around the quiet Paris and found a beautiful woman in a scaffold; they had a conversation, in which they fell in love. In the middle of the night, this youngster brought his pale beloved to his humble dwelling. Next morning, his eyes appreciated a dreadful scene; his sweetheart’s head was separated from her body. He alarmed to the police and one of the officers told him that that his loved one was guillotined last night in the Place de Grève. Gottfried Wolfgang went crazy and died in a madhouse.

    First of all, I would like to say that this story is tremendous as it was full of mystery, horror and love. Moreover, it always kept me attentive and absorbed to each scene of the tale. In this narrative, Irving used an excellent vocabulary to describe Paris at that time, especially the young collegiate and all the situations giving to it a touch of darkness and transporting me to the tale. In one hand, I think Irving pretended to show his political and philosophical thoughts as he mentioned that Wolfgang was captivated by the popular delirium (The French Revolution) arriving at the city of light what makes me reflect that the American author was against the monarchy. On the other hand, he referred to the Wolfgang’s horror feelings when this man saw the guillotine. From my point of view, Irving disagreed this way to punish men at that time. With this story, Irving wanted the readers to draw their own conclusions about the state of Wolfgang and the arrival of his dead darling to the hotel. My conclusions about these two facts are Gottfried Wolfgang had a mental problem and this problem is schizophrenia that made him imagine the conversation he had with the dead girl that night as he had idealized this woman with a white and pale aspect in his mind. This last statement makes me think that this German student felt attraction towards corpses (Necrophilia) that is why he took the guillotined woman to his bedroom. I also think that the German guy found in the corps a friend because he was a solitary person that was the reason he began a lovely dialogue with his lover. Maybe, the solitude took Wolfgang to the Madness.I would like to mention that the main character plays different roles like: a loved man, an isolated person and madman.

    In brief, “The Adventure of the German Student” is a fantastic story that permits the readers draw their own hypotheses about the strange case of Gottfried Wolfgang. Irving wanted to show us how powerful our mind as the main character created a dark world that surpassed the structures ruling the real world. Besides, this text illustrates the great writing abilities of the American author because he presented Paris as a shadowy scenario.
    Written by: Sebastian Gerena.



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  95. “The Adventure of the German Student” was written by Washington Irving, an American author of the early 19th century. The first time I read the title, I thought about all the good things surrounding the word “Adventure”. We always imagine exciting events when we see these kinds of words on books, because we instantly travel into stories like Alice in wonderland or Little Red Riding Hood considering that fairy tales have always told us great anecdotes to enrich our imagination.

    This tale narrates a creepy story about a young man who was not quite normal and who had put on his head crazy ideas; in order to clear up his head, he went to Paris during the French Revolution. One day he found a lonely woman of dazzling beauty who had been already present on his dreams. The student when recognizing her beauty, and with the acknowledge of had had her on his mind, avowed his feelings which were happily accepted. The morning after, with the fortune of an in love man, he went on the search of a starting for his new life finding at his return his beloved dead, his shock and alarm just grew up at the recognition that his beloved was dead since the day before. The poor student with all his hopes killed by a dead and ghostly woman went out of mind finishing his days at a mad-house in Paris.

    Truly, I never imagined that the story would have an ending like this one. I confess that when I read the romantic part (where the boy meets the girl and confesses his feelings), I felt excited because we all desire that the person of our dreams comes to our life someday. It is interesting how the author plays with the reader feelings and how he gives to the reader several possible explanations for the events presented on the story offering ambiguity to the story.

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  96. The Adventure of the German Student

    Today we just believe in what people can see or the science can prove, the paranormal world is a kind of expectation in the real world. Most of us have watched paranormal movies or read about this kind of activity in some books, but what is paranormal activity? It can be described as a manifestation or experience scientifically not proved, in this way, most of people are involved in paranormal stories, for instance, someone can say that our brain allow us imagine about many situations, it was the case of Wolfgang in “The Adventure of the German Student”, a short story by Washington Irving, he had a “hallucination” about a beautiful woman, but nobody can say it was a product of his imagination, because, in fact it could be a real ghost or a devil who wanted his soul.

    There is a group theories in which people believe, but in this case I prefer think that Wolfgang was all the time imagining, because he was a solitary man immersed in his literature books, which drew him away from the real world, it could be an important fact which made Wolfgang mind hallucinate about everything that happened, he really lived the most awful experience in Paris which led him to the brink of madness. I cannot imagine what I would have done in his place, because I consider, I am so nervous, for instance I cannot watch any scary movie or something related to paranormal situations.

    In whole, this story made me feel terrified, but also made me think about how our imagination can play with us, Irving´s story empowers the reader to pay attention to the smallest details the author describe. Otherwise, I specially recommend the story audio, because it is amazing how the sounds and the character voices play with our minds and made us imagine about all the situations.

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  97. Before reading the whole text, I started by analyzing the title “The Adventure of the German Student” I thought this tale was about the adventures of a teenager living by himself and doing the craziest things we can imagine; however, when I started reading it, everything was totally different to what I was expecting. The descriptions were stunning. The way in which the author pushed us to think about the story and the facts was incredible, I could feel every single scene as if I were witnessing the events. I can say that I enjoy reading mystery and fiction stories so that was the reason I loved Irving’s narration.

    Regarding the content and the story itself, I consider that the author was willing to illustrate the difficult situation in France during the war; one of the scenes that was so hard for me, was the moment when the author described the park where people were killed and where the main character found the beautiful woman. Another aspect that caught my attention was Wolfgang’s personality, I think that the life and the environment where he lived, were responsible of the mental illness he was suffering. Personally, I liked Wolfgang’s mental abilities as a student, I wish I were as intelligent as he was.

    This story was really amazing, the writer’s style, the reality and also the fantasy reflected in the narration, made me think about how powerful our mind can be. Wolfgang’s life was not easy, his entire life was a total disaster and I think that was the reason of the dark and unusual stories in his mind. I consider that the author accomplished his main goal: confusing us. I would like to read more stories like this one because I actually love horror tales.

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  98. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT

    This is a short tale created by Washington Irving an American writer best known for his famous work “The legend of sleepy Hollow” that has been taken to the big and small screen. Before talking about the tale itself I want to make reference to the title to emphasize the creativity of the writer as the one I mentioned. When reading the title as the first thing we do and even before knowing about the writer, I thought about another kind of tale; I knew this was an old story and with the word “German” I assimilated that this tale was about the Second World War (the kind stories I like) and how a student passed through difficult times but with a nice ending. However, I found a different anecdote from the beginning; nevertheless as I kept reading I kept getting emerged in the events and the style of Irving.
    This creepy history is about Gottfried Wolfgang a solitary German that is living in Paris to continue his studies after having some mishaps with his enthusiastic and visionary character in his native town. In Paris, he did not have friends only his imagination and his ghoul taste for literary that had transformed him into a vampire of the books. He was also obsessed with a girl that had been appearing in his dream and as a blessing he met in a stormy night just in the middle of the “Place de Gréve” where the dreadful instrument of death had been used (guillotine). As it could be more unreal his love was return and it seemed as his lonely life was going to have a twist, but it could not be more far from the reality that came the next day and that would take him into a nightmare. Although the story contained a big part of suspense and terror it also was mixed with pure love as it could be evidenced in small parts were Wolfgang showed his feelings and the woman too, for me this was the most exciting having a terror story with some love.
    I was caught from the start, from the first word Irving used; I think he had an extraordinary way of describing the setting, the characters, and the events for capturing the reader´s attention. Also because I have a small favoritism for the horror stories I was captured from the start. However, but I liked the most and as I mentioned before I found love and in a genuine that is not easy to find in this kind of stories what attracted me the most. To finish, I want to say that the end was the most amazing Irving could gave us, because it gave me the possibilities to plot about the existence or not of the girl and imaging a lot of hypotheses of Gottfried mental state.

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  99. Before reading the story, I imagined what it would be about based on the title, “The adventure of the German student”, which made me think of a journey filled of fantastic experiences; that is what I expected. However, after finishing the story, I discovered that I was deceived by its title because the atmosphere in there was rather gloomy. Everything happened in a time of misery and calamity, in a place where a young man had to fight against his own madness and the one controlling the city.

    I can describe the story as an intriguing succession of events that involves malady, romance, and overall mystery. That was the key for me, the unsolved enigmas presented by the author, one after another, held my attention and let me yearning for more. We cannot say for sure anything about what happened to Wolfgang; for example, what was that woman? That is the question. The magic of this story is that it allows an endless number of interpretations as readers it has. Ones will say the woman was a ghost, others will affirm it was an illusion, but who is right and who is wrong? All these questions will remain for those who read “The adventure of the German student”.

    I was surprised because the author was able to portray every situation as detailed as possible so I could picture everything in my mind. In addition, the romance presented was interesting until the very end; it is said that love is madness and this story took things literally. I really enjoyed the story because it was a mix of thriller and romance, which are my favorite genres along with adventure. I highly recommend this story for those who want to feel the sweetness of love and the uncertainty of the unknown.

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  100. At the beginning I thought this tale was about a little boy about ten years old with a candid adventure, and then I thought that it was like a Tom Sawyer story, but everything got different when I started the reading. The story was so interesting that I read it all at once; I was not able to stop, until I knew the end of the story, but the author left me wondering about what happened there, and it was a bittersweet feeling, I was intrigued and confused because I did not know the truth, and I did not know, even if there were clues on the story, if the girl was real or a hallucination. I think crazy people can make you crazy too, and this tale is a really good example, because you cannot know for sure what the end of this tale is.
    I admire the author’s description, I like to feel like I am on the setting and this tale did a nice job doing it, the way Washington has described the woman, the rain and the park in which the woman was is amazing, it even got me a freezing feeling, and also the way he describes a mental illness and makes look like a normal situation when he described the conversation and the passionate actions between the two characters, I was not aware that at the end it was going to be the mysterious fact, something unreal in a way, also I liked the way the writer kept the story as a common narration until the whole time until the end and then the readers were surprised discovering what the real situation was.
    Another thing I loved about this tale was description of the psychological profile of the main character; the author was really specific saying how he perceived love and hate, what he wanted, the things that inspired and frustrated him, and also it made us realize the power of mind, how an obsession was dominating someone’s actions and perceptions, it made people see things that are not real and distort reality according to the things people had in their minds.

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  101. It is a great and amazing story behind a confusing title, because when you read “The adventure of the German student” you can imagine all kind of things, maybe a million of possibilities but never that story. It makes you feel really involved when reading it, you cannot guess what will happen next and that is the reason it is a mystery, crazy and original tale. Furthermore, it is incredible to imagine the author’s feelings when he wrote it and think that he was as foolish as Wolfgang.

    The story itself relates the life of Wolfgang a German student who was ill and also unwise. He was an antisocial person and kind of philosophic. He was one of those people who thinks that is different but at the end is just another brick on the wall. The beginning of the story was boring, but then it became in a fantastic one. The way in which Wolfgang fell in love within a short period of time was weird and also make me laugh, I really hated his personality and I think he deserved all that happened to him. My favorite character was the woman because she triggered all the events around Wolfgang life and also her enigmatic identity in my opinion make her the main character.

    The author was able to describe in detail most of the scenes and personalities, it gives to the reader the ability of making a mental representation while reading. This thriller had a characteristic I loved and it is the open ending that allows to the reader think about the different possibilities or also can let him with the doubt. For me it was not a horror story it was a mysterious one and I enjoyed reading it.

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  102. The adventure of the German student is a short story written by Washington Irving. Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. The title of this short story makes you think in several options about the main theme and of course about the main character.

    When I read the tittle ´´The adventure of the German student´´, the idea that came to my mind was that story was about a little boy, a 10 years old one, and his adventures and pranks with friends at school. But when I started reading the story, I realized I was wrong, it was not about a little boy, and it was not an adventure genre story. Contrary to what I was thinking, the story was a horror one, about a German student called Wolfgang who was away of people and involved in his studies, this story involved creepy aspects of the French Revolution, and the story had as a main character a weird woman, which appeared from nowhere and caught the German student attention.

    I consider that horror stories are excellent, but in this case, this story was a little strange for me. First, because he had relations with an apparently dead body; and second, because the end of the story was not clear, and we as readers, were not able to know what the nature of that woman was. Was she a ghost? A demon? Was she just a hallucination? We would never know what the author was thinking about and we will find a lot of possible answers of this enigmatic story.

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  104. “The Adventure of the German Student” by Washington Irving, is a short story that makes part of a number of tales and sketches collected in “Tales of a Traveler” and is narrated by an old man to a group of listeners. It is about a young student from Germany, named Gottfried Wolfgang. He has dedicated himself to passionate speculation of the dark to such an extent that both his physical health and his mind have become “diseased”. In order to combat his morbid fixations, his family and friends sent him off to France to continue his studies. They hoped that once removed from the German atmosphere, he would be more happily influenced by the new ambiances of Paris. Unluckily for all of them, he arrived at the commencement of the Reign of Terror, and the scenes of butchery and cruelty that follow, cause him to withdraw even more into his own dark world of imagination.

    Furthermore, he is sexually obsessed and gives himself over to romantic and erotic dreams that haunt him every day. In one of those dreams there is a very stunning lady which he sees later walking on the streets. He invited her over his place and spent the night together. The next day he found out that she was dead and has been since the previous night when she was beheaded. He thought that he might had been possessed and ended up on a mad-house where he finally passed away.

    From my standpoint, this short story does not make any sense at some points. For instance, how was it possible for the woman to get to Gottfried’s place if she was ostensibly dead from the previous night? She could not be a ghost because the narrator states that somebody saw them both entering the apartment. Besides, they spent the night together and he seemingly enjoyed it. One cannot do that with a corpse! Moreover, it was too strange that the woman in his dreams was exactly the woman he met on the streets. I believe that the whole story was made up by Wolfgang himself just to amuse and entertain his visitors at the mad house where he was. He somehow got there, but it ought to have been for a totally different reason that the one he tells. The old man who listened to him and is retelling the story found fascinating those facts, but he did not make sure that they were true. Thus, if you ask me, I say that I am not a believer of him.

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  105. “The Adventure of the German Student”
    Irving Washington was the most famous writer in the United States of America in 1842. He was the first author who brought the American literature to Europe, and for that reason, he gained European recognition as America’s first genuine man of letters. Washington wrote excellent works such as: History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey and History of New York. As regard, The Adventure of the German Student, is part of a collection of essays from Tales of a Traveler, written in 1824.
    “The Adventure of the German Student” is a tale that took place in Paris at the time of the French Revolution, and is about a German scholar named Gottfried Wolfgang, who was a solitary and strange person and had a poor physical and mental health. He was sent to Paris to cure a strange mental malady that made him hallucinate and create imaginary situations, which exceeded the real world. He spent time in libraries, reading literary ghoul which increased his madness. Every day, Wolfgang dreamed with a female of transcendent beauty. One day, while he was walking around the tenebrous Paris, he found a beautiful woman in a scaffold and he was immediately loving her. He offered her a shelter and a true friendship; she trusted him and accepted his proposal of going with him. After having an interesting conversation they spent the night together. The next morning, Wolfgang left the woman alone, when he returned she was cold and without pulse. She was dead and her head rolled over the floor. He informed the police about the incident. Speechless, the police officer told him that this woman was decapitated the previous night in the Place de Grève. Gottfried Wolfgang went crazy and died in a mad-house.
    This story was one of the greatest that I have read, because it always kept me attentive to each scene. Moreover, the author used an excellent vocabulary to describe Paris at that time, and all the situations that Wolfgang lived because of his mental disorder, characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to recognize what is real. On the one hand, I think this story is kind of a critic that Irving felt about the French Revolution, pretending to show us his political and philosophical thoughts. For that reason, he characterized Gottfried as a radical man with a lack of reason, just like the radical revolutionist of the French Revolution. On the other hand, with the development of the story, the author wanted the readers to draw their own conclusions about the condition of the German student when he arrived to the hotel with his loved one. First of all, I believe that Wolfgang had schizophrenia, and he imagined the conversation with the corpse, as he had idealized this woman with a white and pale aspect in his mind, which makes me think that Gottfried felt attraction towards corpses (Necrophilia) and for that reason, he led his dead darling to his bedroom. I also think that the German guy imagined all this madness, because he was a solitary person and he found in that corpse a shelter for his solitude. And I would like to mention that the main character plays different roles such as: a loved man, an isolated person and a madman.
    “The Adventure of the German Student” is an interesting story that shows us that the human mind is fantastic but in many cases it is dangerous. It teaches us that when we imagine without limits and mix ours feeling, we can go crazy and do inexplicable things. Finally, this text illustrates the great writing abilities of the American author because he presented Paris as a shadowy scenario.

    Camilo Andrés Casadiegos Niz

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  106. “The adventure of the German Student” was written by Washington Irving, who is also known as the father of American literature. As a reader, I must admit that when I read the title for the first time I thought I had understood it, because the word "adventure" covers both good and bad things, but when I finished reading the story, I realized that although what I was thinking about it was true, still I was remaining short in words because in the title was hiding many things filled with mystery and confusion.

    This tale took place during the French Revolution and it was narrated by an old man who was a partner of Wolfgang's madhouse. This story was about Gottfried Wolfgang a young student from Germany who was born in a good family but with a vigorous character and uncommon vision of the world around him. Wolfgang was a depressed, solitary and perturbed man because of his diseased mind, and for these reasons he was sent to Paris to cure his mental illness. But unfortunately, his problems continued when in his dreams there was always a woman of beauty without equal. What he did not know was that his dreams were going from being unreal to something totally real. One day Wolfgang was returning home and he passed nearby to some steps that were leading to the gibbet, it was at that moment when he saw a woman dressed in black, the same woman who was always present in his dreams. From then and on, he decided to help her offering support and protection to the point of being in love with her, without seeing the reality that was in front of his eyes. That woman who had captivated him so much was actually a woman who had been guillotined one day before. Such was the amazement and Wolfgang's fear for this event that he was sent to a madhouse where he finally died. I have to say that in this story the author tried to confuse the reader showing a supposed conclusion that was going to continue, but the reality was different because the end was totally unlike. In addition, he also wanted the reader let his imagination run away to the point of extracting their own conclusions, and in my opinion it was interesting.

    To conclude, the moral that the story gives us is that we must learn to control our minds and feelings to be in total harmony, and let us not be carried away by strange things that make no sense. Also, we must show ourselves with a strong personality to be able to walk along the life with total confidence, and believing only in what is visible and accurate and not in imaginations and speculations.

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  107. “The adventure of the German student” written by Washington Irving is a story that brings together various aspects: the presence of the supernatural, the feminine sensuality, the world of dreams and the presence of evil. Beginning with the title, when I read it I thought the story would be about a guy riding in the forest, maybe looking for a princess or fighting against dragons or villains as the brave princes in the fairy tales. However, the plot was really different. It was not known how the woman’s body reached Gottfried’s room. It could be a witch, a ghost, a devil or maybe a suffering soul: the truth is uncertain. The people who read the story must again draw their own conclusions.

    The boy became ill because of the context: he was influenced by the tempestuous times of the French revolution, its consequences and its victims. Although the German student had studied for a long time, he was innocent in the things of the world, and sensitive to people who died cruelly in the guillotine. Besides, the most transcendental aspect in the story was how a beautiful woman haunted in his dreams to the point of believing that it was true. He shut himself away in the libraries to devour books and it was precisely these readings that leaded to Gottfried Wolfgang to believe in the existence of an imaginary world apart from the real world. This fact worsened his mental health.

    As regards Gottfried, I imagined him as a passionate admirer of female beauty but also as a solitary being with a visionary and enthusiastic character, a secluded life and a melancholic temperament produced by the gloomiest effects of the revolution. In my view, the purpose of the author was to show that each person has a world in his head and that the external environment affects the mental health of people.

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  108. First of all, it is important to denote when reading the title, I thought, and it gave me the impression the story would be about the adventure of a boy in a new school; because of Washington Irving used the words “adventure” and “student”. I imagined the boy arriving at a new city, and school. However, when I started to read, all I had imagined collapsed instantly. I realized, just with the first lines, that “The adventure of a German student” would be a story full of terror, suspense and mystery; aspects that motivated me to follow the reading.

    Washington Irving since the initial line creates and emerges the reader in an atmosphere of mystery, for instance, “In a stormy night, in the tempestuous times of the French Revolution, a young German was returning to his lodgings, at a late hour, across the old part of Paris.” His telling is so detailed that transported me to Paris as if I had been there, in “French Revolution” time. Moreover, another relevant fact to expose about Irving in this story is his creativity, how he mixed terror, suspense and mystery, with the romanticism of a story with love, passion, and beauty. Having read “The adventure of a German student” I can say that it is a masterpiece, completely.

    I really loved its plot, characters, and even the end. This story was a mixture of emotions. The beginning was full of suspense that made me want to know more and more. Then I felt pity because of Wolfgang’s life, obsession, and solitude. However, next, I was happy due to the atmosphere of love, romance among the main characters. Finally, I was scared when Wolfgang realized the girl was dead and that she was executed the previous day, and also, I was sad because of how all ended for Wolfgang; his last days of life in a mad-house in Paris. Irving thought each event magnificently to catch readers’ attention. I am glad to have read this classic and treasure of English literature.

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  109. When I read “The adventure of the German Student” by Washington Irving, the first thing that came to my mind about the title was a wonderful story concerning a young man who had lived exciting and extraordinary love experiences or a student with a friend in different places of the world. However, the real context of this story was something that I did not imagine, because there were many obscure and malicious events. It involves a series of dark situations lived by a young German student in a terrible moment of his life, due to his mental illness and because it took place at the worst period of time in Paris, known as the French revolution.
    Making reference to those aspects mentioned before, this story presents us an obsessive man for gloomy and mysterious books which caused him some significant reactions in his personality. So, these actions emphasize on certain negative features such as the strange behavior of the young student and the “absurd” moments he created in his mind which he brought into the reality. But I think because of that romantic encounter, he forgot that he was a different being, and he thought that this bizarre scene was normal and his mind deceit and his heart was wrapped by his mad desire, that he finally ended up giving his own life, soul and heart to a demonic being, who led him to madness and died in that condition.
    In short, from my perspective, I did not like this story because it is about horror, spirits and I do not like these topics. I also believe that there are stories that appear to be imaginary or just created to entertain the readers, they have a dark undertone that can fool everyone’s minds. (And in this case I would not go into details). However, on the narrative style of writing and everything that has to do with how the author developed this story, I consider it was very interesting.

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  110. Washington Irving’s "The Adventure of the German Student", is a dark and chilling fell cliff-hanger that strongly attaches after reading the first lines. The reason relies on the elaborated content regarding human mind’s complexity, and the damagean immersion in an unpleasant setting that can do to one’s mental health. Furthermore, the story evinces the negative role of society in the perception of what is love, creating the conception that it is feature of life that is pertained to carnal desires by characterizing Gottfried Wolfgang, a melancholic German dweller who is forced by his relatives to move to Paris during the French Revolution with the purpose of finishing his studies.

    Wolfgang went through some difficult times, he was mentally instable and his family and friends agreed that he must breathedifferent air, thus he was sent to the less proper location, France. Therein, the society was under a time of radical changes that caused chaos, destroying the expectations and failing with the purpose of the man’s change of address.Wolfgang’senthusiasm was strong but the radical events, started to change him.He felt trapped and the only way he had to repress those horrible scenes was through reading, activity that made him lose his mind and suppress his sexual appetite to the point of manifesting them per dreaming with an ideal female. His unhealthy state was such that he believed his perfect woman had materialized by a guillotine and had no place to stay, giving him the chance to take her with him, profess her his love and get lucky. For some the climax is finding the next morning the woman’s dead body which rolls the possible nature of the story leading to a state of disorientation in the reader. As his mental status lack of balance, to explain the situation, the real events might have been a mad man carrying anunbeautiful corpse to his chamber, and having coitus with it. Eventually, a fool action (call a cop) makes him being taken to a mental clinic where he spent his last days.

    Clearly, Washington Irving shared his stance on the purpose of human relationships and how society has demonizedlove as an aspect possible to be possessed by creating a character that professes it for the forlorn of beauty without going beyond leaving mayor aspects behind such as for instance cleverness and way of perceiving the world. In addition the precipitated marriage proposal confirms the lusting of men that leaded to ensure that a love which is portrait under these circumstances can only end in the lost of a person’s humanity. In addition, the story can be taken as a critic of the mistreatment of females taken to unpleasant places and situations by a man (guillotine) who gained their love with words.

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  111. “The Adventure of the German Student”
    Washington Irving wrote a short story named “The Adventure of the German Student” but who was this author? He was an American author, essayist, biographer, diplomat and historian of the early 19th century. Taking into account this short introduction about this author, one can infer the title of this short story can make the reader think about several possibilities of the story content. Nevertheless, I think the title is obscure, being that at the very beginning I thought that this story will be about adventures in spite of when continuing with the reading I realize it was a completely different story.

    When I read the title the idea that came to my mind was “adventure” which is a literary genre known for usually including emotions, adrenaline, action, heroes, horses, maybe a princess in trouble and the discovery of new places or lost things. But when I started reading the story, I realized I was wrong, it was not an adventure genre story. Contrary to what I thought, it was a horror story about a German student called Wolfgang who got sick because of his secluded life. Some friends suggested him to move to Paris in order to take care of his health. Furthermore, this story involved disturbing aspects of the French Revolution, and a weird woman who appeared from nowhere and caught the German student attention and made him to become a mad man.

    I really love this horror story being that it is very descriptive. Also, this story is incredibly eye-catching thanks to the impressive way to describe the author has, I could image the whole story in my mind while reading. However, it was a little weird. In fact, I deduced the author had psychological problems. First, because the main character of his story was a necrophiliac man,and second, because we did not know who the strange woman was. Was she a hallucination? Or was she a ghost or a demon? We would never know the real author’s intentions when he wrote the story.

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  112. “The adventure of the German student” written by Washington Irving is a short story about a young man who apparently was mentally ill, given that during his scholar years was exposed for a long time to speculative doctrines, to studies of a particular nature, to superstitions and beliefs that in some way affected him in both mind and body. His friends were worried about him and decided that a change of atmosphere would be the best for him. They believed that sending him to Paris would provide him some fresh air to clarify his mind.

    Even though, when he arrived to Paris, French revolution had just started, being thus the wrong time to recover himself. Unwilling to face all that scenery of tragedy and pain, he put himself away from the real world and placed himself in an imaginary universe, surrounded of ancient and archaic literature. One day, walking down the streets of Paris, he saw the guillotine, an instrument that scared him to death and next to it, a beautiful woman grumbling perhaps the death of a beloved one. Being instantaneously captivated for the woman’s beauty, he felt the necessity to be his companion, to take care of her and make her happy. The woman, pleased with the singularity of the gentleman let herself be carried by the young man till his home. There, they fell in love with each other and a dream came true to the fellow.

    Nevertheless, the dream did not last long to the young man. The next day, when he went to meet his fantasized lover, he found her lying down in bed without pulse, pale and cold. He was horrified and run to ask for help. When the police officer arrived, he was even more shocked because he had seen the woman being decapitated the night before. Forever after, the student could not overtake this event, having in mind the idea that something evil had possessed the body of that lady in order to drive him mad, an idea that took him to die alone in a mad-house in Paris.

    This story particularly caught my attention because the author made me recognize a variety of sensations inside it such as love, horror, madness, guilt, reality and even fantasy. It is quite impressive to be capable of reflecting all those feelings in a narration at the same time. This singular characteristic confused me a little bit, since in the beginning I did not know what to think about the characters, the events and the consequences. There were so many possibilities to analyze it, to understand it that the author just left to the readers the benefit of the doubt.

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  113. ‘’The Adventure of the German Student’’ by Washington Irving, relates the story of Gottfried Wolfgang, an eccentric young man who has moved to Paris in order to recover from a mental health crisis attributed to a secluded life and peculiar study habits. However, his arrival to Paris resulted in an exposure to all sorts of perversions and violent scenes surrounding the French Revolution. This last fact ends up by consuming his life and deteriorating his mental health. In addition to all these misadventures, the tormented student begins to develop an obsessive disorder which haunts him in dreams and eventually ensure his perdition.

    While reading this story I could notice that ‘’The Adventure of the German Student’’, as well as most fantastic stories, provides the reader with the opportunity of interpreting the sequence of events according to the logic that best suits him. Either the reader may believe that he is in the presence of a supernatural phenomenon or the culminating event making part of the story is only the reflection of a diseased mind. From my point of view, this story is not related to demonic or supernatural manifestations in the traditional sense; rather, the focus is on some inscrutable dimension of reality that goes beyond what the senses could perceive.

    I enjoyed this story from beginning to end as it seems to have many parallels with the short stories of one of my favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. Indeed, as some Poe’s narrations, the main character seems at first to be rational, but he gradually deteriorates reaching a state of madness. Personally, I always find this twists effective despite knowing that everything is just the product of the imagination of an author.

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  114. The Adventure of the German Student

    “The Adventure of the German Student” by Washington Irving, is a short tale related to a young student known as Gottfried Wolfgang. He is an impetuous and fanciful man who consecrated his time to speculative convictions in such a way that disturbed him bodily and mentally. In order to overcome his mental malady, his relatives and friends concluded that the better option was sending him to France as quick as possible. Unhappily, he arrived to Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution, and all this conflict caused him to immerse even more into the isolation of his rare and fictional world.

    Additionally, he was harassed by the spirit of a beautiful girl. One day, he was walking into the old and terrifying streets of the ancient Paris. Unexpectedly, he saw this gorgeous woman that appeared in his dreams stayed on the ground. He was extremely fascinated with her that he proposed her to spend the night together. Anyway, the following day, he discovered that his dreamy girl was lying in bed with a freezing and frightening aspect. He was overwhelmed what he witnessed, he thought he was controlled by an evil spirit or even a demon who drove him to commit such a crime. Owing to his state of mind and all the dilemma he went through, he eventually passed his last years in a mad-house until he died.

    The author made an excellent work at writing this story, due to the combination of emotions and imagination placed in a piece of paper. However, the main’s character diseased personality changed my earlier expectations, because at the commencement of the story, I expected that probably the German student would be a normal guy who spends time with his friends, something similar to “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”. Besides, I appreciated the way he used to describe Gottfried’s beloved, in such a way that I could imagine her physically and emotionally. I really loved the imagination Washington Irving adopted to conceive the settings and the characters. From my perspective, the author made me reflect about how changeable the human mind is, and how our emotions can sometimes control us.

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  115. “The adventure of the German student” is a fascinating short story written by Washington Irving, a well-known and influential author, considered to be the father of American literature, because in his writings and works he helped to shape author’s identity. When reading the title, it brings over about what really the story treats itself, such as for example that this one is based on some droll or fantastic facts that this student had to experience when he was in school. However, during the development of it, you can realize how interesting this is and what this really is about. You can not stop reading as soon as you have started.

    The story itself relates the life of Gottfried Wolfgang, a German young student, whose personality was highly weird. Very isolated from others, he spent the most of his time reading and studying rare items such as speculative doctrines pertaining to that epoch. This desolation led him to develop an attitude of shyness and distrust, and a melancholic temperament too. Suddenly, he became ill, thus, he was sent to a better place to study; Paris, where he devoted himself to stay in the major libraries surrounded by ancient and deserted literature. One day, in the street, he met a beautiful woman, which he had previously idealized in his dreams, and whom he fell in love with immediately. She was extremely sad and affected by the death of several of her relatives, so the student decided to take her to his apartment and comfort her. There, they confessed their love for each other and decided to marry. However, strangely and unbelievably, he found his beloved dead the next day. He wanted to know what had really happened, but when a police officer informed him the shocking truth, that she had been killed the day before in the guillotine, he went mad and died.

    This is a captivating and interesting story that catches readers’ attention from the beginning to the end of it, by the way in which the plot, the characters and the different events are presented. I could realize that actually it was a totally fun and impressive adventure that this person lived. This story makes us to think about the power and complexity of the human mind and how the personality and the behavior of a person can greatly influence in other lives. Moreover, this one sets us to think about the confidence we have with others, how fast we got to trust someone else and how this is appreciated.

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  116. The “Adventure of the German Student” caught my attention from the very beginning. When I started reading this short story, I had no idea of what it was about; I did not even imagine that it was a dark humor one since I thought this tale was about the crazy adventures of a young man.
    It is really impressive how the author describes in a deep manner the settings, the situations and the feelings of the characters because it allowed me to feel as if I were witnessing the events. One of the things that really impressed me was fact that in this story there are many unknown facts to solve, for example, after reading, I wondered if the German Student was a madman or if these strange events happened or not in the real world. Finally, I concluded it maybe was one of the author’s purposes, that everybody had a different perspective of this story.
    To conclude, I consider this author has a different style; it is remarkable how Irving engages the readers with all the awful details. Finally, I admit through this story I realized that I am fascinated by dark tales. I recommend everyone to read this fascinating story.

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