...person who says that happens to write a best-selling novel about the idea and educate the people of the world, then maybe we’ll have a fighting chance. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake is a dystopian, fiction novel, but it has an alarming sense of realism once you actually figure out Atwood’s overall message. With this novel, Margaret Atwood is telling us that we are killing our planet, our species, and we don’t even know it. She’s saying that we are growing too fast and our resources cannot keep up with our rapid expansion, and this can lead to only one outcome: the end of humankind as we know it. In this novel, Atwood uses a first-person narrative to tell this story – that of Snowman/Jimmy. Because of this, we get a limited view of what’s happening. If there’s any part of the story we need to read about, we either have to see it through Snowman’s eyes or we have to hear somebody else tell it to him, and this gives us a limited view into this dystopian world which Atwood has created. The use of this narrative becomes increasingly complex as she transitions between present-Snowman narratives and past-Jimmy narratives. Oftentimes, during a Jimmy moment in the novel, the reader’s concentration and focus will be disrupted by random comments inserted by Snowman. Now, it’s important to remember how the novel began, with Snowman, a new species, and no...
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...mind, as the space you inhabit not just with your body but with your head. It’s that kind of space in which we find ourselves lost. What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, a geography of the mid. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately; we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a country or culture, shared knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive.” Margaret Atwood, Survival As Atwood’s statement demonstrates, Canadian literature is concerned with place and displacement, and with the development of an effective identifying relationship between self and environs. Canada’s literature whether written in English or French reflects three main parts of Canadian experience. First, Canadian writers often emphasize the effects of climate and geography on the life and work of their people. Second, frontier’s life is part of Canada’s experience that appears frequently in its literature; Third, Canada’s position in the world profoundly affects many Canadian writers. French Canadians often feel surrounded by their English speaking neighbors. They have made a determined effort to preserve their own...
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...so much and even if there are more than seven billion people on Earth we still continue to feel more and more lonely and isolated. Isolation is a theme which inspires a lot of writers. Margaret Atwood in “Death by Landscape” and Herman Melville in “Bartleby, the Scrivener” illustrate the topic of isolation. Lois and Bartleby, who are the two main characters respectively, have created their own isolation, and are negatively affected by it. We will see how they are both physically and socially isolated, the reasons and the consequences of these isolation. First, from the beginning of “Death by Landscape” we can see that Lois is isolating herself physically and socially when the narrator says: “Now that the boys are grown up and Rob is dead, Lois has moved to a condominium apartment in one of the new waterfront developments” (Atwood 25). She is closed off from the outside world, in her “safe” condominium. She does not want to go up north again, even anywhere near. She just wants to stay safe and avoid her fears. Also, Lois “was living not one life but two: her own, and another, shadowy life that hovered around her and would not let itself be realized” (Atwood 35). Moreover, she was socially isolated for a long time, “she can’t remember, now, having her two boys, …or what Rob looked like” (Atwood 35). Similarly, in “Bartleby, the Scrivener” the antagonist is isolating himself. We know nothing about him, but apparently he has no family and no friends. He works and lives at his office...
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...The use of point of view is what allows authors to paint a descriptive and always evolving story line through the use of words. It gives the reader the keys to unlock their imagination and let their mind run wild with possibilities. An example of two different narrative styles can be seen in Margaret Atwood’s “Death by Landscape” and Richard Ford’s “Great Falls”. Using completely opposite methods to convey their stories these authors achieve a very similar effect on the reader. These methods include: foreshadowing, mystery, and highlighting the protagonist characteristics’. Both stories leave the reader with a feeling of empathy and a burning desire to know the truth. “Death by Landscape” is a handcrafted masterpiece written in third-person, about a young girl named Lois. Atwood however, takes it one step further in that of limited omniscience. By doing this, both the reader and Lois have the same feelings and reactions to Lucy’s disappearance. She “stepped sideways, and disappeared from time.” (Atwood, 35) The mystery and lack of closure that surrounds Lois also surrounds the reader. The same can be said for Ford’s “Great Falls”, who portrays the narrator as a young boy named Jackie. Ford does something unique by using Jackie as a distant narrator. He doesn’t want to know what is going on despite knowing something is wrong. “I have never known the answer to these questions, have never asked anyone their answers.” (Ford, 575) Although they use different styles of composition...
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...assimilation and therefore be the cause of his/her own isolation. In both Margaret Atwood’s poem collection Journals of Susanna Moodie and Maria Campbell’s narrative poem, “Jacob,” protagonists Susanna Moodie and Jacob struggle as outsiders in their respective Canadian environments. Both protagonists are outsiders as Moodie is an outsider to the wildlife environment of the Bush and Jacob is an outsider to his Indigenous community; however, Moodie’s outsider status is a result of her personal fear of the unfamiliar, while external societal forces create Jacob’s outsider identity. Both outsider identities, while differing in causation, illustrate the negative impact Western ideology has on the new settler and Indigenous populations as the former’s preconditioned Western beliefs turn Canada’s natural environment into an adversary and the latter is pressed to abandon its unique cultural traditions. Through strategic word choice, both Susanna Moodie and Jacob are established as outsiders in their respective natural and social environments; however Moodie’s personal barriers cause her outsider identity, while Jacob’s outsider status is forced upon him by societal factors, providing a commentary on the destructive impact of Western ideologies. Atwood manipulates words to situate Moodie as an outsider to nature as she writes, “The moving water will not show me/ my reflection./ The rocks ignore” (“DAQ”16-18). Atwood uses negative descriptors such as “ignore” to personify nature as unwelcoming...
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...and what do they support. * Explanation of the non-feminist’s interpretation of the short story. * Meaning of the short story for this reader. IV – CONCLUSION – Any text can be interpreted differently and there are no rules when you read. Not everyone thinks alike and there are different opinions. We can’t judge a story or even a person given our own ideology, we could only give our opinion and respects others’ Any text can be read and interpreted differently depending of its different readers, since everyone has a different way of seeing and understanding things depending on our ideologies, context etc. A great example where we can presence this difference of interpretation is in Stone Mattress short story written by Margaret Atwood. It...
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...Andrew Papis 1 May, 2012 Perspectives on the Individual Final Course Paper The Struggle for Freedom Human beings are emotional individuals. Their feelings direct them in one direction or the next, and brutally establish who they are, and what they do. It is the human environment that activates these emotions, and these emotions that in turn impact the human environment. They can be either positive or negative in nature, and are centered with government and society. When life is attained from a human being, their outlook on life becomes devious. Having a positive on life conceives comfort in many people’s lives. When an outside fury comes along and changes someone’s life, his or her attitude is going to change drastically. In three books I’ve read, “Night”, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, each struggle with the society they are dealt with. To be more specific, each main character has to struggle for freedom in the society that is surrounding them. ...
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...Genius" by Dave Eggers 4. "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah 5. "A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition" by Lemony Snicket 6. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle 7. "Alice Munro: Selected Stories" by Alice Munro 8. "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll 9. "All the President's Men" by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein 10. "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt 11. "Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret" by Judy Blume 12. "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett 13. "Beloved" by Toni Morrison 14. "Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall 15. "Breath, Eyes, Memory" by Edwidge Danticat 16. "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller 17. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl 18. "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White 19. "Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese 20. "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead" by Brene Brown 21. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1" by Jeff Kinney 22. "Dune" by Frank Herbert 23. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury 24. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" by Hunter S. Thompson 25. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn 26. "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown 27. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens 28. "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human...
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...Area of Study: Belonging * ‘As You Like It’ written by William Shakespeare * ‘Towelhead’ directed by Alan Ball in * ‘The Surfer’ written by Judith Wright | As You Like It | Towelhead | The Surfer | Language Form and Structure | * ‘As You Like It’ is a stage play in the form of a comedy * It also qualifies as a pastoral romance * Shakespeare wrote the lines of the play in both verse and prose | * ‘Towelhead’ is a film | * Poem * 3 stanzas * Free verse | Personal, cultural, historical and social context | * Written during the reign of Elizabeth I and ironically, both Rosalind and Celia would have been played by men * Appealing nature to both lower and higher classes * Used as a model of social critique | * Set in Houston, Texas during the 1990s * Occurred during the Gulf War * Follows the sexual awakening of Jasira (an American-Lebanese girl) | * Set in Australia | Identity One’s sense of belonging is built upon their exploration of self and the confidence they establish through their own identity. | Identity is explored most obviously with Rosalind’s disguise as Ganymede. This concealment of her true identity allows Rosalind to discover whether Orlando truly loves her. It also allows Rosalind to gain a deeper understanding of herself. This is seen through the use of dramatic irony, this enhances the audience’s connection with the characters and adds to the humour of the play. “Nay, you must call me Rosalind”. Ultimately, it...
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...English 175-‐02: Introduction to Literary Genres Instructor: Aaron Schab aschab@uidaho.edu 209 Brink Hall Department of English University of Idaho Course Meets: Life Sciences South 163 Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:30 am – 10:20 am January 9, 2013 – May 10, 2013 Course Description In this class, we will learn about the basic conventions and terms used to understand and discuss the three major genres of literature: fiction, poetry, and drama. This class will help you understand the sometimes baffling world of literature, and is intended to provide the general student with basic experience in literary analysis. Additionally, I hope this class will lead you to a lifelong appreciation for (and engagement with) reading literature. Although this class features extensive reading and writing, it is not necessary for you to be a bookworm or a writing superstar to succeed in this class – if you ...
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...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...
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...Garnett) 7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939) 8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949) 9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) 10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952) 11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. —Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) 12. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no...
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...32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow The electric light was a failure. gets you there. It’s bad financial decisions and blueprints for machines that weren’t built until decades later. It’s the important leaps forward that synthesize lots of ideas, and it’s the belly-up failures that teach us what not to do. When we ignore how innovation actually works, we make it hard to see what’s happening right in front of us today. If you don’t know that the incandescent light was a failure before it was a success, it’s easy to write off some modern energy innovations — like solar panels — because they haven’t hit the big time fast enough. Worse, the fairy-tale view of history implies that innovation has an end. It doesn’t. What we want and what we need keeps changing. The incandescent light was a 19th-century failure and a 20th- century success. Now it’s a failure again, edged out by new technologies, like LEDs, that were, themselves, failures for many years. That’s what this issue is about: all the little failures, trivialities and not-quite-solved mysteries that make the successes possible. This is what innovation looks like. It’s messy, and it’s awesome. Maggie KoerthBaker Invented by the British chemist Humphry Davy in the early 1800s, it spent nearly 80 years being passed from one initially hopeful researcher to another, like some not-quite-housebroken puppy. In 1879, Thomas Edison finally figured out how to make an incandescent light bulb that people would buy. But...
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...* Alphabetical idioms - lists A : * list A1 : abbreviated piece of nothing → (hold all the) aces * list A2 : achilles heel → alarm bells * list A3 : all along → all the rage * list A4 : all sizzle and no steak → apple of your eye * list A5 : (upset the) applecart → at all costs * list A6 : at this stage of the game → (have an) axe to grind * Alphabetical idioms - lists B : * list B1 : (leave someone holding the) baby → in bad shape * list B2 : badger someone → whole new ball game * list B3 : ballpark figure → battle lines are drawn * list B4 : battle of wills → beat a dead horse * list B5 : beat a hasty retreat → before your very eyes * list B6 : beggar can't be choosers → beside yourself * list B7 : best bet → beyond any reasonable doubt * list B8 : beyond one's wildest dreams → bite the bullet * list B9 : bite the dust → blamestorming * list B10 : blank cheque → blow away the cobwebs * list B11 : blow a fuse → above board * list B12 : in the same boat → bored to tears * list B13 : born with silver spoon in your mouth → all brawn no brain * list B14 : know which side your bread is buttered → a breeze * list B15 : bricks and mortar/bricks and clicks → pass the buck * list B16 : kick the bucket → burning question * list B17 : bury your head in the sand → by degrees ...
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...M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 0 2 Volume 20 Number 2 SPANNING THE GLOBE Duke Leads the Way in International Law Teaching and Scholarship inside plus Duke admits smaller, exceptionally well-qualified class Duke’s Global Capital Markets Center to launch new Directors’ Education Institute from the dean Dear Alumni and Friends, It is not possible, these days, for a top law school to be anything other than an international one. At Duke Law, we no longer think of “international” as a separate category. Virtually everything we do has some international dimension, whether it concerns international treaties and protocols, commercial transactions across national borders, international child custody disputes, criminal behavior that violates international human rights law, international sports competitions, global environmental regulation, international terrorism, or any number of other topics. And, of course, there is little that we do at Duke that does not involve scholars and students from other countries, who are entirely integrated with U.S. scholars and students. Students enrolled in our joint JD/LLM program in international and comparative law receive an in-depth education in both the public and private aspects of international and comparative law, enriched by the ubiquitous presence of foreign students; likewise, the foreign lawyers who enroll in our one-year LLM program in American law enroll in the same courses, attend the same conferences...
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