...PERSONAL NARRATIVE 1 When taking a look at how my life has changed over the past five years I can truly and honestly say that I would never have expected the things that have happened. Back in June 2007 I was separated from my husband and moved into my own apartment. I was in the United States Navy for six and a half years at that time. My divorce was finalized in January 2008 and I deployed to Afghanistan in March 2008, for eight months. After coming home from a long deployment, I had orders to move to Lemoore, California. This area is nothing but farm lands and I did not like that at all. I was born and raised in Southern California and enjoyed the fast-paced life that I was living. It is amazing how things have changed. In July 2011 I was honorably discharged from the United States Navy and I moved back in with my mother and two younger sister. Growing up we lived in a condo in Diamond Bar, California, but that all changed over time. The same time that I got out of the military, myself, my sisters and my mother had to move out of our condo and into a two bedroom apartment. Talk about a huge change in life. This move has not been easy for any of us. There is no privacy and we all have to share the living space. I share a bed with my middle sister and my mother shares a bed with my youngest sister. I never thought that I would be unemployed for this long, but it has been over a year since I got discharged. It seems like nobody is hiring right now...
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...the Dead,” it takes a different direction. Instead of focusing on the realities of combat, this chapter focuses on the childhood memory of the narrator and author O’Brien, showing us his first love, Linda, and how she had a tragic death. This departure from the war narrative is not a distraction but a deliberate choice that serves to connect the pain of losing his first love, Linda, with a broader theme of trauma. Through this chapter, the narrator proves that trauma is a persistent force, deeply embedded in memory and integral to human experience. In "The Lives of the Dead” O’Brien reflects on the impact that Linda had on his life. This personal loss marked his first encounter with death, a theme that resonates throughout the whole...
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...narration – narration of fact * Events control the narrative composition * Subjective narration – purely imaginative narration (fiction) * The writer controls the narration of event * Three Elements of Narration * Setting * A narrative must happen somewhere * “background” must be plainly indicated * Either by incidental references here and there * Or by formal description * Characters * There must be actors * Must have definite personalities * Can be described formally when they appear * Or described themselves by their words and actions to the reader * Plot * Series of related events * (Imaginative) the writer invent the plot * (Fact) the writer finds it in a sense ready in hand * Motion and Time in Narration * Motion * Narration give us a moving picture * Its emphasis is not on the thing in motion but on the nature of motion itself * Narration does not tell about a story, It tells the story * Time * The movement of series of incidents follows the order of time * Chronological order of arrangement * The series of events must have significant relation with one another * Point of View * A person who bears some relation to the action * Either as observer or participant, and whose intelligence serves as the index of the action for the reader * Three points of view * Main Character * Personal experiences * Principal actor or main participant ...
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...The Ingenuity of Narrative in Memento Abstract: Narration, simply put, is telling stories. However, the way movies narrate tales is not like that of novels developing plot in words or drama unfolding in stage space, but has its own special method for narrative - moving images. In Memento, through its unique nonlinear narrative structure and intense structure contradiction, the motifs of memory, self-deception and revenge and the philosophical exploration of existential angst are demonstrated in an elaborate and subtle way. Key Words: Memento narrative structure narrative contradiction Memento recounts the story of Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia, who distorts his own memory to deny the harsh reality in a both conscious and unconscious way. Living in a world full of lies fabricated by himself, the ill-fated protagonist makes the very principle of his life consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise of the revenge for his wife’s death which is actually caused by himself. In Memento, the splendid way of narration gives audience not only indelible psychological experience, but also a test on their ratiocination. Below is the analysis of narrative advantages in Memento from aspects of narrative structure and narrative impetus, compared with novels and dramas. I．Narrative Structure Narrative structure is the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer. Compared...
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...various rhetorical strategies—metaphor, imagery, and narrative structure—to engage readers and invite them to participate in his introspective exploration. This essay argues that Schrand’s use of the Bone Road as a metaphor, his vivid descriptive language, and his non-linear narrative techniques effectively draw readers into his exploration of family history and personal identity, reflecting broader themes of searching for meaning in a...
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...Nestled among the poignant narratives and lofty philosophical discussions in Augustine's Confessions lies a treasure of theological truths and propositions. Indeed, in Augustine's monumental and crowning work, he fuses both personal anecdotes and rational paradigms to formulate masterful theological doctrines, which have vastly influenced the Christian church for well over a millennium. Thus, for Augustine, a solid philosophical framework forms the basis of theology, which individual experience thence enhances and augments. Augustine's discussion of the Holy Spirit throughout the Confessions clearly demonstrates this intricate interplay. Any analysis of the Holy Spirit in Augustine's works cannot be complete without first embarking on...
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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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...The extent of political ideology as a motivational factor for soldiers in the American Civil War was so great that it changed the historical narrative of the war for veterans and future southerners. In his semi-biographical book, The Making of a Confederate, Williams L. Barney uses the life of an elite Western North Carolina planter named Walter Lenoir, and his descent into the Lost Cause ideology. Barney presents Lenoir as a comparatively liberal man of the time. Educated at his home states university, prior to the attack on Fort Sumner he planned to move to Minnesota, a fairly young state that was actively recruiting Americans from other states and Europeans to solidify population dominance over the inhabitant native tribes. Barney characterizes the Lost Cause phenomenon as an attachment to the faded glory of a romanticized Confederate past. Using Williams L. Barney as a model of the Confederate soldier, his choice of subject varies from the popular trend of studying the poor southern confederate soldiers and his motivations. Lenoir, an elite southern planter was the quintessential model of who would most benefit from a victorious south. Though southern identity contains it fare share of myriad ambiguities, Barney presents a semi-biographical analysis that precisely dissects the often-proclaimed complexity of the Lost Cause narrative. With intention, Barney shows that the preservation of slavery was indeed the reason the south fought and that for men like Lenoir, despite his...
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...Africa through Theatre This paper sets out to explore how processes of theatre making employed by The Mothertongue project, provide spaces for women to remap their personal narratives. Mothertongue works from the premise that the development and subsequent performance of stories in theatrical processes affords women the opportunity to re-write and remap their personal narratives and in so doing insert their voices into the landscape of South African Theatre. In an attempt to redress the gender imbalances and androcentricism prevalent in post-apartheid theatre, this paper speaks to the relationship between theatre, liminality and communitas. I am interested in unpacking how collaborative processes of theatre-making provide spaces for women to remap their personal narratives. Remapping in this instance refers to processes of transforming lived experience through story. I address how, through engaging in ritual activities that are central to the stories performed, actors, audiences and the owners of the source stories are invited to physically participate in remapping and transforming lived experience. Linked to this is the choice of form(s) and how this affects or impacts on the performed stories as well as on the construction of performed rituals and ultimately on the processes of remapping personal narratives. I focus specifically on Mothertongue’s 2004 production, Uhambo: pieces of a dream. The production was an integration of theatre and visual art in the form of performances...
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...is, ‘always open to dispute and redefinition.’[1] This claim has very strong foundations. The very nature of Avant-Garde film requires it to be at the forefront of experimentation. As new techniques are explored and boundaries are broken down, what may have been at the forefront of experimentation in the Fifties for example, may be one of the most used techniques in Hollywood by the Seventies or now. This gives the impression that to remain innovative, Avant-Garde directors must change style to fit what is required of them during their particular time period. The mention of Hollywood hints at the relationship it has with the Avant-Garde. Murray Smith describes Avant-Garde as a ‘personal mode’, and goes on to say the films are made by, ‘filmmakers alone or in combination with private patronage and grants from arts institutions.’[2] It seems easy to glean that Avant-Garde cinema works outside the Hollywood community. This ‘personal mode’ gives filmmakers a chance to make films for reasons beyond money. To test limits, reaction and technique is more important. Perhaps these films are made not for an audience, but for the pleasure of the filmmakers themselves. Smith does not mention funding...
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...character conventions, paragraphing or plots. The various ways of creating a metafictional work is meant to capture the reader by making them aware that the story being told is made up, preventing a connection to their reality. One must question how do readers respond to the metafictional work? Can this response change when a different media is being used? These questions must be evaluated first in order for the metafictional to be comprehended in the second reaction. After the reader has had time to pose certain questions it will help them understand the work of leiterature. Using reader’s reactions to Beckett’s “A Text for Nothing, Number 4,” “The Magic Poker” by Robert Coover and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando , we can evaluate the responses to these works and acceptance of the evident fictional world. In the first round of reading Samuel Beckett’s “A Text for Nothing, Number 4,” the reader might start off with more questions than answers. In the beginning the narrator asks himself personal questions of preference that we often find ourselves asking. “Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, If I could be..” are questions the reader relates to having asked themselves the same thing at some point in life. These questions give a base for the reader to feel that they will connect and...
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...characterization, rhythm, or a fairytale setting throughout their narrative. It is imagination that sanctions the reader of these literary forms to be able to mentally visualize what the author would like the reader to visually perceive by use of symbolism or descriptive wording. In the poem “The Road Not Taken” or short stories “A Worn Path” or “Used To Live Here Once” – There is a prevalent theme. No matter what solitary journey we find ourselves on, ‘we’ determine how the journey ends. The solitary journey that each of these literary pieces share is presented differently in each inditing. Robert Frost designed “The Road Not Taken” with specific designs in the narrative that revealed for me as the reader that there was a forthcoming journey. Frost also utilized the word “I” many times, which sanctioned me to imagine him alone. Comparative to this example let us compare “A Worn Path” where Welty utilized the word “she” throughout the writing piece. The linguistic choice inspired my imagination to visualize a woman walking alone. This visualization was reinforced in other places of the writing when the character spoke to animals to get out of her way: “Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, and beetles”. When Welty posed this conversation in the story, it gave me a sense of solitude. The submission that the woman also was walking a uphill path provided the symbolic comparison to a ‘hard life’. Walking uphill for any length of time is exhausting for anyone and when you add the notion of...
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...The Boy at the Top of the Mountain is a story of lost innocence in the face of terrible evil. It's a tale of innocence corrupted as Pieter's personal devotion to Hitler changes him from a kind 7-year-old with a Jewish best friend into a self-important bully who betrays his friends and is proud and boastful of his membership in the Hitler Youth. Back in 2006, same author John Boyne had introduced us to Bruno, the 9-year-old whose father is Commandant at Auschwitz where the boy becomes friends with the Jewish hostage Shmuel after whom The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is titled. Reflecting that title, the authors new novel seems to be like a sequel but it's more an assistant piece telling an entirely new story through the eyes of Pierrot, a French/German...
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...Sheryl Sandberg - Leadership Communication Analysis Written Report Sheryl Sandberg is an American business leader, activist and writer currently serving as the COO of Facebook. After graduating high-school in Miami, Sandberg attended Harvard where she earned a A.B. in economics, followed by an MBA at her alma mater. After graduate school Sandberg worked for a former professor at the Treasury Department, where she became a chief of staff before moving to Google, and finally to Facebook. Sandberg’s first book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, was published in 2013. A feminist call for increased female leadership in the workplace, the book was received with broad critical acclaim. Throughout Lean In, Sandberg synthesizes academic studies and her own professional experiences to encourage women to strive for leadership positions in the workplace. Through her book, speeches, and other writing, Sandberg weaves several leadership communication approaches into her overall communication style, including meaning maker, storyteller, and direction setter. Meaning Maker In her book and speeches Sandberg discusses the common experience of women in the workplace, describing a shared stake in the future as members of that group. She frequently uses terms like “we” and “our” when discussing female experiences and opportunities at work. Her language and point of view communicates supportiveness to both genders, articulating the shared goal of equality at work and at home...
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...Extract 1 is an account of the first public hanging that took place in the city of Minsk, Soviet Union under the Nazi occupation. (Mullany, 2010) The men, Kiril Trus and a sixteen year old Volodia Shcerbatsevich were members of a partisan cell organizing anti-fascist resistance. The seventeen year old girl, Masha Bruskina was a nurse who had been caught aiding the partisans. She provided civilian clothes and papers for wounded Red Army soldiers under her care and smuggle them back to the resistance. It is an in depth description of the brutality of this event, with emphasis on the circumstances under which this event took place. Extract 2 is an account, sixty years after this event. A journalist Jake Denbigh is working on the experiences of war-time immigrants during the 2nd World War. (www.carlabanks.uk/forest/) Jake is visiting a museum in the city of Minsk that is devoted to the atrocities of the Nazi occupation and is experiencing some of the events through looking at photographs. Extract 1 is set in the city of Minsk in the Soviet Union, four months after Germany invaded the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June, 1941. (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha_Bruskina) The hangings were inplemented to make an example of them...
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