...does not represent actuality and it is seldom based on facts.Novels and short stories are fiction. | A short story belongs to the genre fiction.It is epic and it tells a story in just one main plot. Often: * Exposition (eksponering, udstilling, redegørelse) * Complication * Crisis * Sad/happy/open/surprising ending.A short story is often restricted (begrænset) to one setting only; fixed place and time and narrow (snæver, smal) social surroundings. There is a limited set of characters in a short story. A decisive (afgørende) situation beyond a character’s control occurs (forekommer, opstår) and the story starts. A short story only discusses a selected part of life. It mostly shows a decisive moment in life, which can entail (medfører) a fatal blow (skæbnesvangert) | To analyse fiction is to open the text by examining its various components (forskellige bestanddele). A good analysis will cover all the following points. * However, all the points will not be equally important in all analyses. Always base your analysis on what is actually said in the text. Analysing of fiction Description: | * Who is the author? * What expectations do the title and the literary genre raise? * Is the text: * Realistic * Naturalistic * Impressionistic * Expressionistic * Fantastical * What literary period it is? * Is the text easy or hard to read? | Narrative technique. Point of view: | Through whose eyes do we see what is going on in the text? ...
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...Gothicism in Detective Fiction The Hound of the Baskervilles By Yue Zhao Submitted to the School of Foreign Studies in Partial Fulfillment to the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in English (International Trade) Under the Supervision of Ms. Tang Jun June, 2012 Acknowledgement I would like to pay tribute to all those people who have given me a hand in the process of writing this thesis. Without their gracious help, the accomplishment of this thesis would not be so smooth. First and foremost, I deeply appreciate my supervisor, Ms. Tang Jun, who has provided me with so many valuable comments and constructive advice all the way through. But for her constant and invariable patience and kindness in guiding me, it would be more difficult for me to go through all the confusions and find a right direction. My thanks also go to the teachers who has given me suggestions, which benefit me a lot when I make the original plan, in the opening defence. With their help, I get to know where I should go next. Last but not the least, I extend my thanks to my classmates and my dearest parents for their encouragement and support. Wheneve I feel frustrated with my work, they are always there. Gothicism in Detective Fiction The Hound of the Baskervilles Abstract: As one of the most influential people who are never alive, Sherlock Holmes, written by Arthur Conan Doyle, attracts researches. The Hound of the Baskervilles...
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...Her novels are concerned primarily with exploring the sub-consciousness and characters’ correspondence to different occasions. The prioritization of psychological over physical realism has led to her usage of several narrative techniques that, though partially, succeed in deciphering the inner reality of human beings. Unlike Joyce, the psychological reality Woolf depicts is not merely mental; her writing goes beyond representing characters’ egoistic self to “a merging of the self with someone or something outside” (Naremore, World 152). So, it is not only characters’ mentality, but also their experience with the surrounding are what distinguish Woolf’s stream of consciousness. The function of interior monologue and free indirect discourse is obscuring the boundaries between abstract thoughts and concrete...
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...much of the control on the consumers rather than the producers of these media forms. Two digital media forms experiencing particularly interesting shifts of power are video games and digital music. Consumers of digital media forms such as video games and digital music files have complicated the traditional notion of authorship through their use of digital media technologies, which allows them to use digital media as an instrument of expression. Before delving into the intricacies surrounding this new form of authorship present in digital media it is first important to discuss the notion of authorship prior to the emergence of this digitally induced phenomenon. In non-digital mediums such as books, radio, and television, authorship exists as an individual endeavor, as authorship is only granted to the original author(s) of the media. As a consumer of this non-digital media the only point of contention as it relates to authorial expression is limited is the debate over authorial intent or narrative interpretation in these non-interactive cultural forms. Books, television, and radio are more or less consumed passively and the only means of authoring something from these forms of media is to create an entirely new piece of media that is related to the original. For example, a viewer of a television show or movie has the opportunity to create a satirical interpretation or write a review of the original. While this certainly may be construed as authorship, this version of authorship...
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...For other uses, see Fiction (disambiguation). An illustration from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, depicting the fictional protagonist, Alice, playing afantastical game of croquet. Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical, cinematic or musical work. Fiction contrasts with non-fiction, which deals exclusively with factual (or, at least, assumed factual) events, descriptions, observations, etc. (e.g.,biographies, histories). Contents [hide] * 1 Types of fiction * 1.1 Realistic fiction * 1.2 Non-realistic fiction * 1.3 Semi-Fiction * 2 Elements of fiction * 2.1 Plot * 2.2 Exposition * 2.3 Foreshadowing * 2.4 Rising action * 2.5 Climax * 2.6 Falling action * 2.7 Resolution * 2.8 Conflict * 2.8.1 Types of conflict * 2.8.1.1 Person vs. self * 2.8.1.2 Person vs. person * 2.8.1.3 Person vs. society * 2.8.1.4 Person vs. nature * 2.8.1.5 Person vs. supernatural * 2.8.1.6 Person vs. machine/technology * 2.9 Character * 2.10 Methods of developing characters * 2.11 Symbolism * 2.12 Metaphor * 3 Types of plots * 3.1 Chronological order * 3.2 Flashback * 3.3 Setting...
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...literature addressed to aesthetic problems and can be viewed largely in terms of its formal, stylistic and semantic movement away from Romanticism, examining subject matter that is traditionally mundane. It often features a marked pessimism, a clear rejection of the optimism apparent in Victorian literature. It attempted to move from the bonds of Realist literature and to introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines. Modernism as a literary movement is seen, in large part, as a reaction to the emergence of city life as a central force in society. Furthermore, an early attention to the object as freestanding became in later Modernism a preoccupation with form. Modernist writers were more acutely conscious of the objectivity of their surroundings. The most prominent modernist authors are: T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Franz Kafka, Knut Hamsun, Gertrude Stein, Mikhail Bulgakov, MarcelProust, John Steinbeck, Ezra Pound, Katherine Anne Porter, Rainer Maria Rilke, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Frost, Boris Pasternak, Sherwood Anderson and a lot of others. Modern short stories only occasionally consist of an exposition. It usually comprises of an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action. The plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning-point. The...
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...Aibhi Biswas M.A English (Final) 4 November 2013 Two need to play this game: ambiguity in Marquez’s the chronicle of a death foretold The chronicle of a death foretold is an ambiguous novella in terms of genre, narration, resolution, aim and in terms of giving agency and power to the reader/ author. The novella can be seen as a parody, a suspense thriller and a detective novel of journalistic trend. The death is the central event but there’s no mystery regarding it rather completely different questions are raised. The aim of this paper is to show that the narrator is distinct from the author but sometimes they intersect. Thus Ronald Barthes statement that the author is dead is not completely true. The authors’ present but it’s not an omnipotent presence, controlling the universal subject (the reader). But this does make the reader all powerful. Barthes implies in his essay Death of the Author. The reader follows the patterns presented by the author but the final impression, overall opinion of the text and the reader’s reaction are not prefigured or controlled by the author. Thus the author and the reader together form the overall value of the text. Raymond Williams explains the formation of the category of Literature, its ever expanding and changing parameters\paradigms are explained in his essay Marxism and Literature. This paper will show the growing value of Latin American Literature, becoming a part of the literary canon, valued as a skillful piece of art. This...
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...The Plot and Theme in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” Raymond Carver states that by the mid-1960s he was tired of reading and writing “long narrative fiction” (“On Writing” 46). Shorter fiction, he found, was more immediate. This mode of thought may help us to understand why Carver turned to compose shorter works of fiction like “Cathedral,” a work that acts as a brief glance into how one man’s physical blindness helps another man begin to overcome his own spiritual blindness. Carver’s thematic plots could convey alternate meaning—both directly and indirectly. “Cathedral” introduces the theme of blindness, shown by “this blind man” (Carver 709), but concludes by addressing the deeper theme of internal or spiritual blindness by the host. Therefore, the plot and theme of “Cathedral” relay simultaneous levels of meaning to the reader. “Cathedral” tells a story of an irreligious man, who learns a spiritual lesson from a blind man: “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do” (Carver 718). That’s why at the end of the story he does not open his eyes for he wants to “keep them that way for a little longer” so that he can see clearly in his mind. There are two types of blindness, but when we talk about blindness, we usually think of the blindness on our physical body rather than the blindness in our mind. In “Cathedral” both Robert and the host are blind: one is blind in external sight, and the other one is...
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...since they both, according to how both novels fall into the post-apocalyptic genre, can be interpreted as a warning to our present society about letting technology take over, and letting technological development be more important than developing human qualities. This essay will investigate how the novel can fall into the genre post-apocalyptic fiction based on the characteristics of the genre and the characteristics of the book. It will also look into the narrator of the story, and how the choice of narrator has affected the book, and it will look into the fight between the two major sciences (natural sciences and the humanities) and lastly, whether or not the book can be interpreted as a critique towards modern society based on the findings of the investigations mentioned above. I expect to find that Oryx and Crake can be seen as a warning because the issues the novel approaches are all issues that are present in the world today. THE POST-APOCALYPTIC GENRE AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE The novel “Oryx and Crake” were written by Margaret Atwood in 2003. The novel falls into the genre ‘post-apocalyptic fiction’, which can be defined as fiction that tells the story about what the world has become after the destruction of the earth or society as we know it; the word ‘post’ meaning what comes after and ‘apocalypse’ meaning revelation . An example of the post-apocalyptic setting can be found on the first page of Oryx and Crake; “Out of habit, he looks at his watch … a blank face is what...
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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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...1 Discuss the relation between narrative style and mo ral judgement in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The relation between narrative style and moral judg ement in literature is an issue in aesthetic philosophy that stretches back to Plato. ‘Narrative style’, I define as those formal literary aspects employed by the writer, in order to construct a narrative that is unique. By ‘moral judgement’, I refer to the messag e conveyed by a given text when referring to objects beyond itself. The above quest ion presupposes a relation between narrative style and moral judgement, and as such, part of my analysis will be to determine whether such a presupposition is wa rranted. Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness has been celebrated for its detailed examination o f European values and conduct. Ian Watt argues that ‘ Heart of Darkness embodies more thoroughly than any previous fiction the postu re of uncertainty and doubt.’ 1 But is this reading accurate? And if so, what stylistic devices does Conrad use in order to convey this position of ‘uncertainty’? Heart of Darkness uses an oblique narrative style, that is to say, t hat an unnamed narrator relates the narrative as it is in turn rel ated to him by Marlow, Conrad’s main protagonist in the novella. It is thus we can be to ld that for Marlow: ‘the meaning of an episode was not inside like a ke rnel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as...
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...Theme and Narrative Elements of the Secret Life of Walter Mitty Josetta James ENG 125 Introduction to Literature Instructor: Angela di Gualco 01/10/2014 Theme and Narrative Elements of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” The theme is one of the most involved elements of a short story. The themes job is to give the readers the over-all idea that is fabricated behind a story. A short story is marked as portraying broad ideas and elements into small pieces. In short, the theme in a story reflects or serves as the presentation of its ideas. (Clugston, 2010) The objective of this essay is to reveal the ways in which the literary elements tone and character contribute to the larger narrative theme by analyzing the short story by James Thurber titled The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. James Thurber created the character of Walter Mitty whose life seems so ordinary and boring. Walter Mittys imagination (daydreams) helps him to escape his dull life. His imagination places him in heroic situations such as a commander in the Navy steering his crew though bad weather in an 8-engine Navy hydroplane, or thinks he's a famous surgeon who is asked to help a rich Englishman, who is a friend of President Roosevelt. James Thurber set the tone for Character Walter Mitty by his actions of day dreaming, escaping reality Tone is more than merely an author’s attitude toward his/her audience and characters; it is the stylistic means by which an author conveys his/her Attitudes in a work of literature...
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...“of their lives, it is painfully obvious that these clones carry unique names, faces, and personalities. By the time Ishiguro lets us in on his dirty little secret—that society has created these children to serve as biological vessels intended to exist only long enough to reach maturity before their organs are harvested through forced donation. It is too late the as the clones have already established themselves as ordinary people. They laugh, cry, squabble, reconcile, grow old, and they ultimately fall in love. While Ishiguro’s tale has unmistakable air of science fiction to it, it is difficult for the reader to view it as. It should not be a surprise that society that view them as clones, are anything but normal. Tommy and Kathy are every bit the intelligent, compassionate human beings that you and I are, exactly the sort of people that you would want to be friend. If they differ from the society surrounding them it is because of their society’s inability to conceive of them as anything more than “shadowy objects in test tubes”;not because of their conception in a laboratory. Despite this, even those that know them best remain afraid. Review on Never Perspectives Marvin Mirsky growing practice of familial decisions to have an “extra child “for use as a source of organ transplants when needed for earlier or favoured children, has encouraged Ishiguro to imagine a time very near the present when society (Britain in Ishiguro’s case) will have a regular program for producing...
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...somebody who wonders if there even is a real future for mankind. Of course, if that one 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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...“Canada is an unknown territory for the people who live in it, and I’m not talking about the fact that you may not have taken a trip to the Arctic or to Newfoundland, you may not have explored as the travel folders have it – This Great Land of Ours. I’m talking about Canada as a state of 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...
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