...Some genres of novels are considered to be more "literary" than others or are more respected than others. One genre that is often looked down upon by those in the literary world is the romance genre due to the sometimes overly descriptive nature of its story line. However, despite the possible stigma attached to them, romance novels are extremely popular and according to statistical data, accounted for the largest share of types of books sold in the U.S. in 2010. Romance novels follow a classic form: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. They normally contain flowery descriptions of love, and idealized versions of courting and romance. One publisher - Harlequin - has become famous for only publishing romance novels. Some examples of romance novels include: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks The Next Always by Nora Roberts The Kiss by Danielle Steel The Sweetest Thing by Barbara Freethy A Second Chance by Ellen Wolf Ironically, although romance novels today are often looked down upon, many early romances are considered to be classics. These include: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Tess of the D'Urbervilles by By Thomas Hardy A related category of novels has also developed that is often known as "chick-lit." These books are not classic romance novels in that they may deviate slightly from the happy-ending and idealized descriptions of love...
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...| World Literature Assignment 1 | The Relationship Between the Corporeal Body and the Spirit In the Context of the Novels “Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer” and “Hunger” | | | | | Subject: English A1 Higher Level Session: May 2010 Word Count: 1500 The constitution of the human being is often classified into two parts: the body and the mind or soul. Whereas these two aspects of the being, supernatural and physical, are often considered two inseparable parts of a whole, they are regarded, rather, as distinct features in both the novels, Perfume and Hunger, that work together in order to form the complete individual. However, though the particular relationships between the individual’s corporeal body and the metaphysical mind or soul in these two novels are portrayed similarly in a number of aspects, they are not without their unique attributes. A distinct correlation between the portrayal of the body and the state of the individual’s internal being is seen to be present in the context of both texts. Grenouille, in the novel Perfume, is described, even from infancy, as having “…eyes…of an uncertain color, covered with a kind of slimy film…” (Suskind 16) and a nose “…like the cups of…[a]…small meat-eating plant…” (Suskind 17) It can be seen here that his abnormal and parasitic tendencies have been reflected in his physical appearance, as it is throughout the book. Because...
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...Oz is a graphic novel written by Sean Patrick O’Reilly and Erik Hendrix. I really enjoyed reading The Steam Engines of Oz. I think that the use of graphic novels in a student’s curriculum is important and should be increased. They can be more interesting and amusing than the content in a standard curriculum; they are educational because they teach students a different form of literature, and they also differ from basic novels because they can help students visualize the story through illustrations. A standard curriculum usually consists of novels and genres that some students might consider tedious or repetitive. Graphic novels can be used as a “break” from the otherwise tedious genres in a curriculum. Graphic novels...
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... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * By Cornelius Andersen * October 2013 * * * * City of Glass is the first novel in Paul Auster’s bestseller: “The New York Trilogy”. In the novel we follow Quinn, a lonely writer who has lost wife and son. One day Quinn receives a phone call that completely changes his life. Quinn gives oneself out of being the famous private detective Paul Auster, which leads him into an old case that eventually will change him forever. * * Our main character and protagonist of the story is Daniel Quinn, 35 years old, living by himself in New York. Daniel is a writer, who writes mystery novels by the pseudonym William Wilson. Some years ago he lost wife and son. Daniel spends most of his day walking around in the streets of New York. But Daniel is not just one single person. In the story, his name is no coincidence. Daniel also changes his identity to Paul Auster, the famous detective, and his initials (DQ) also have a reference to knight Don Quichote. He also uses the pseudonym Max Work in his literature. All these different identities make Daniel a very confusing main character. Though the story he shuffles between different identities, which also change the way that Daniel acts as a person and to his surroundings. * Another important character is Peter Stillmann Jr. Trough his childhood, Stillmann Jr. was being abused...
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...recognition. Charlotte Brontë’s coming of age novel, Jane Eyre, qualifies as a classic because it has been read in Literature classes and libraries around the world for the past one hundred and sixty years, proving it can withstand the test of time. Her classic writing style, unforgettable characters, and literary acclaim have all contributed to the novel’s success. These same characteristics apply to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, supporting that this novel will also stand the test of time. Each author has a style uniquely their own, with...
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...“They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction” (Page 174). In the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the main character, Grendel, acts as a monster who is jeopardizing the King Hrothgar’s town. The novel is told by Grendel himself. With Grendel as the narrator, the audience is able to understand his thoughts and the events that he goes through. By Gardner choosing to have Grendel narrate the story, the reader is able to see into his life, grasp his thoughts and feelings, and understand why he turned into the monster he is. As Grendel tells the story, the audience is able to see the events that he takes place in and understand why he makes the choices that he does. Grendel telling the story firsthand lets the reader follow his life from childhood, to when he becomes a monster. Grendel evolves greatly through the story as his opinions on certain things change. He acquires a more advanced way of narrating and writing through the novel. He also includes things like the thoughts of other characters, for example, when he's comparing humans to animals saying the deer “sees all life without observing it” (Page 8). His narration changes the storyline and the view of things from that of Beowulf. If the novel were to be told by another character, the reader would not get a clear...
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...Report, Dorthea Søiland The secret life of bees centres on Lily’s search for clues and connections to her mother, who was killed when Lily was a little girl. We get to follow her journey as she runs away from her abusive father along with her nanny Rosaleen. Lily is longing to be loved, because the lack of it in her past life is destroying her. “People who think dying is the worst thing, don’t know a thing about life” Lily, p2. The novel is an excellent written drama. It explores race, love and the idea of family and home in troubled times. The author of the book, Sue Monk Kidd, is a well-known writer who has written other known books such as “The Mermaid Chair”(2005) and “A Mother-Daughter Story”(2010). She has been on the New York Times bestselling list twice, which one of them were with this very novel. The secret life of bees was published in 2002 by Penguin Books New York. The story takes place in South Carolina in the 1960’s, which we can say is a time were racism was on it’s worst. Time and place has a lot to do with the story, and we get to look into a time were being black wasn’t easy. The main character of the book is fourteen years old Lily. She is a brave and smart girl, whose only wish for a birthday present is to know a little about her mother. Her fear of living a life without being loved is getting her to write poems, which she’s good at. All-tough Lily doesn’t have a mother she has a father, T. Ray. She calls him that because she doesn’t think of...
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...and many other characters showed many acts of bravery. The bravery that Odysseus possessed was extraordinary and could have changed the story line completely if he didn’t use it as often then the story may have developed different. Odysseus’ bravery was tested in many adventures that he endured throughout the novel. This will be proven in many ways throughout the essay. Some examples of people that also showed bravery are Penelope, the herders, Tele, the suitors and even Ody’s crew. But the basic point im throwing across is that if no one had shown the bravery that they didn’t the story line could have completely gone in to a different direction. Some of the smaller characters that showed bravery every once and a while were Penelope, the herders, the suitors, and Ody’s crew. But the played a big part in the development of the story using the character trait bravery. An example of this is when Ody’s crew helped Ody using this trait. One example of this is when they were trapped in the Cyclopes’s Cave and they helped Ody build a giant six-foot long spear made out of a tree and then they helped him thrust it into the Cyclopes’s eye while he was sleeping. This was an example of bravery because they did this because they didn’t want to be eaten by the Cyclopes so they attacked him and succeeded. Not only if they hadn’t have done this then the story may have developed differently because they may have never made it out because the Cyclopes would have eaten them all. Another example...
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...The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a carefully sculpted novel that unravels the development of a young African American women in the South. As the novel progresses, Janie, the main character, sporadically moves from place to place trying to find her voice through a harmoniously partner. The author, Zora Neale Hurston, both simultaneously records and tells the story of Janie, through the alternation between the rural Southern dialect and the conventional English language. At distinct times in the text, Hurston pick Southern dialogue over the high literary dialect used by the narrator. There are numerous periods of constant idiomatic dialogue, celebrating Janie’s culturally rich heritage. Each character has slight variation in their...
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...the remarkable story of Francis Phelan, once a talented baseball player, husband and father of three, who has fallen so far from grace that his home for the past twenty-two years has been the street. He sees and converses with men he has killed, and men he’s helped or befriended along the way. The story’s events take place over a period of three days, in which Francis gradually comes to terms with the past he fled so long ago. The Ironweed story has been adapted to novel and movie formats, which will be compared below. I much preferred the movie version to the novel. For me, author William Kennedy’s style of writing is needlessly vague and difficult to follow, yet he did a wonderful job adapting the screenplay for the movie. Several aspects of the story I did not fully understand until I watched the movie. Kennedy also lifted Helen Archer, Francis’ girlfriend, into a main character role for the movie. I was very glad to see her presence expanded in to movie as her role in the novel is rather small for such a fascinating character. In the second chapter of the novel, Francis, Helen and friend Rudy Newton go to The Gilded Cage saloon for drinks, where it is revealed that Helen is a former songstress. Barman Oscar Reo, a former singer and radio star himself, convinces Helen to sing for the crowd. Helen hesitates at first, but finally relents and performs what seems to be a wonderful rendition of ‘My Man’, followed by ‘He’s Me Pal’. According to the novel, Helen’s rendition...
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...Comparative Analysis of Point of View of Joseph Andrews and Emma Point of view is the mode of narration that an author employs to let the readers “hear” and “see” what takes place in a story. In this essay, the point of view of Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding and Emma by Jane Austen will be analyzed in comparison to one another. The comparison will be made on each aspect of the point of view, such as subjective/objective, partial/impartial narration and the perspectives through which the point of views are presented. The point of view of Joseph Andrews is third person omniscient. In Third person omniscient narration the narrator lies outside the plot and knows everything about the characters, their emotions and feelings and various events happening in the story, such a narrator is a God like character who is aware of everything. The narrator of Joseph Andrews is an intrusive narrator who keeps the reader aware of the fact that they are reading a fiction and the truth of the novel lies not in its facts but in the depiction of human nature. The intrusive nature of the novel can be felt by the descriptions provided at the beginning of each chapter, like the description of chapter V says, “The Death of Sir Thomas booby, with the affectionate and mournful Behaviour of his Widow, and the great Purity of Joseph Andrews”(24). In the very beginning even before reading the chapter the mind of the reader is made to think in a particular way that the behavior of the widow will be affectionate...
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... The Voyage Out, first novel [pic] In The Voyage Out, one of Woolf's wittiest, socially satirical novels, Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship, and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a modern version of the mythic voyage. As a ship makes its way to an exotic location in South America, a young woman begins her own journey inward in Virginia Woolf’s 1915 novel The Voyage Out. Rachel Vinrace is traveling far away from her home in London. Her fellow passengers are a fascinating and motley assortment of members of Edwardian society whose lives and relationships reveal much about the world from which they come. Through witty comedy and stark tragedy, Woolf examines such themes as family, culture, and the individual in this remarkable portrait of modern life. Its unique and lyrical style, which has garnered the novel praise since its first publication, adds an artistic dimension to this surprisingly current novel. Indeed,The Voyage Out is a beautiful and telling work about self and society that rings as true today as in 1915. 1919, Night and Day [pic] [pic] Originally published in 1919, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives of four major characters while examining the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. Like Virginia Woolf's first novel The Voyage Out, Night and Day is a more traditional narrative than her later novels. Unlike her first novel, however, Night and Day relies...
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...Novels / Stories Perspective A novel is an extended story written in prose. Or, to put it more simply, novels tell stories. The novel is a relatively modern form of literature. The modern novel has existed for only the past three hundred years. Earlier narratives—such as Homer's Iliad or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales —were written in verse. Novels and stories portray the trials and tribulations of life and the crises of human existence. The characters and settings reflect real life, although a sub-set of novels features more unrealistic (and often melodramatic) plots in imagined historical or future times (as with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit , Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , or modern science fiction). While written in prose, stories often exhibit poetic use of language and dialogue commonly associated with drama. (See Poetry and Drama .) The Author and the Narrator The author of a story often plays an active role within a story. The author, in the voice of the narrator, can openly comment on characters and their actions and predicaments. This "point of view" has been compared to the angle from which a camera might observe actions. The two major options for the point of view of a story are named after the pronouns authors might use: • first person narrator who participates in the story – I did this. • third person narrator who stands outside the story itself – He/she did/thought this The two different forms of narrator...
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...the directors view is skewed and one sided leaving no room for one’s own interpretation. In the film The Color Purple, Stephen Spielberg continued to dilute the main themes that were portrayed in the novel by Alice Walker,...
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...Definition: What is literature? Why do we read it? Why is literature important? Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. Generally, most people have their own ideas of what literature is. When enrolling in a literary course at university, you expect that everything on the reading list will be “literature”. Similarly, you might expect everything by a known author to be literature, even though the quality of that author's work may vary from publication to publication. Perhaps you get an idea just from looking at the cover design on a book whether it is “literary” or “pulp”. Literature then, is a form of demarcation, however fuzzy, based on the premise that all texts are not created equal. Some have or are given more value than others. Most forays into the question of “what is literature” go into how literature works with the reader, rather than how the author set about writing it. It is the reception, rather than the writing, which is the object of enquiry. Largely, what we call “literature” is often a subjective value judgment, and naturally, value judgments, like literary tastes, will change. Etymologically, literature has to do with letters, the written as opposed to the spoken word...
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