Victor mentions the “sublime shapes of the mountains” in the chapter before the creature kills Elizabeth on their wedding night. This chapter is interesting structurally because it uses sublime settings to restore a sense of ease to Victor, before the next chapter shatters his false sense of security. However, while the use of sublime settings is sometimes used positively to reflect the beauty and power of nature as well as Victor’s mood, it is also used by Shelley to highlight Victor’s isolation – another example of how it is impossible to say whether places or characters are more important because they both co-operate in Gothic literature. Shelley uses the sea in particular as a place that reflects Victor’s anguish, isolation and nature as a tormented Gothic protagonist. At one point Victor states, “I looked upon the sea; it was to be my grave”.
RIP VAN WINKLE: AN EMERGENCE IN AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY Rip Van Winkle was given the credit of introducing the short story as a new genre in American literature. It could be considered ironic or entirely unsurprising to discover that American literature comes out of age by embracing the mythological theme as one of its most significant thematic bases. Rip Van Winkle makes readers question whether they are reading something of factual history or fiction. The mythical elements of the narrative are obvious when the Gothic elements begin setting in. Rip hears his name but cannot see “nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain”.
Graded Assignment ENG303A/ENG304A: American Literature | Unit 4 | Lesson 1: Creating an American Mythology – Introduction Graded Assignment “Rip Van Winkle” and the Emergence of an American Mythology This document provides an overview of the tasks and time line for completing this assignment. Assignment Instructions As you have learned, the stories that make up a nation's mythology share several characteristics: • • • • They are set in the past, often in remote or exciting places and times. They are filled with remarkable, strange, or exaggerated characters. They feature incredible, heroic, impressive, magical, or mysterious events and their consequences. They convey a positive message about a nation or its people.
“he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, and at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.” So what has caused this decline in remote area population? Many stereotypes and preconceived ideas of the bush have definitely played a major role. But I think the most important thing for Australians to realise, is Rocking carvings by the Adnyamathanha tribe at Flinders Ranges that the outback has not died. Flinders Ranges is an excellent example of one of the many communities that eat, breathe and sleep Australian culture. Flinders Ranges is a place that reminds us of our original inhabitants, whilst impressing visitors with break taking scenery.
Ambrose Bierce’s Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge In cursory read of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” which often involves close attention to the dream escape of Peyton Farquhar and the plot of this Ambrose Bierce story, one of the more striking elements of the tale is the cold and distant narrator who relates, with icy distance, the scene before him in meticulous and often, what may seem like unnecessary detail. This highly distanced narrator in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” creates a sense of distance for the reader as well and by the end of the story, when it is clear that Farquhar is dead, the ending is all the more shocking because the narrator sets himself as being highly credible for real events because of his precision with the beginning details and exact descriptions. In short, for this essay on “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, examine the narrator as a developer of reader trust in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” and examine the way in which he or she lends to the shock of the ending via narrative techniques. One of the strange paradoxes concerning “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is its strong and disconcerting blending of genres. On the surface and, in fact, for the first-time reader of the story, until the end this seems like a quintessential work of realism but in fact, as the conclusion reveals, it is anything but realism; it is more surrealism as it is discovered that this was an elaborate dream.
Joe Schwartz August 27, 2012 Jen Ferretter English III Beowulf Heorot and Grendel’s lair are two very different things. In Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf the word choice and figurative language can be used to compare Heorot and Grendel’s lair. Heaney uses lots of similes and personification to tell the story of the two dissimilar places. When Heaney describes Grendel as “fatherless creatures” (l. 1355), he is talking about how he has a hidden past and no recollection of their ancestry. This becomes an important factor throughout the book when the battles take place.
Beowulf: Book vs. Movie Every culture encloses a particular story that entails the relationship between mortals and gods. In early English culture, one particular story, Beowulf, illustrates the heroism of Viking culture, and highlights Viking strength through one individual’s courage and might, Beowulf. Although Beowulf’s story is great and historical, however, its descent down history has allowed the character Beowulf to ripple and fade; the person that is Beowulf has become a cloudy topic. In numerous versions of the story many pieces of the puzzle are lacked or missing, making each story significant on its own. In the textbook format of the story and in the popular 2007 movie “Beowulf”, both personify the nature
Yolen’s decision to write Briar Rose in a fairy tale forum helps provide another viewpoint that can help you comprehend such a gruesome period of history like the Holocaust. “Briar Rose reinscribes memory, and shows us what an important role storytelling can play in the acts of surviving and transcending horror.” (Wells 1) The very last article that I was able to find on the Briar Rose was a short one, but clearly had a positive reaction towards Yolen’s book. It states that Briar Rose regardless of the fact that it is a work of fiction speaks the truth and is brutally honesty. “Despite whatever connections we may or may not have to this dark period in history, there is a part of us that is only able to comprehend the true enormity of such stories when they are hidden in depts of older tales, for these old tales exist in
Because myths are linked historically not just to literature, but also to the experience of the sacred, their use has the effect turning an experience sacrosanct (Clasby xi). The two texts, Wild Thorns and Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story are imbued with various myths, of heroism and martyrdom, nation and national identity, and the motherland and revolution. Though the myths in the story are born out of a historical and political necessity to create a unified community, the same myths are also far removed from the lived experience, often alienating characters instead, and limiting the exploration of different possibilities and interpretations of history and nation. Myths, as the chosen form of communication of “prophets, poets and rebels” (Clasby xv), offer a symbolic language for articulating experience that can be used as a narrative of the experience of a people. In the light of the fact that many scholars see “modern consciousness” as a fall grace (Clasby 1), myths elevate the ordinary experience to the sacred (Clasby xi).
Expressing History and Society through Magic Realism Techniques Magic realism is related to but different from surrealism. Both of them use imagination, along with fairy tales, and legends to create mythological setting and plot. However, in magic realism, the imagination is based on reality. In Alejo Carpentier’s “the kingdom of this world”, characters, events, plot that author created mostly can find in Haiti’s history. Gerald Martin (1989) point out, “Magic realism is a different approach to looking at thing”.