Dale Disney Professor Pucciarelli English Composition: Section 64 21 September 2011 FICTION OR DESCRIPTION There are various techniques to write and share stories. Which technique is best to use seems to be subjective. In both Joan Didion’s essay “On Keeping a Notebook” and Patricia Hampl’s essay “The Dark Art of Description” illustrates this fact clearly. While Joan Didion uses rhetorical questions, personal anecdotes, and imaginary facts to record her life experiences, Patricia Hampl uses imagery and vignettes in her writings, but based on the fact that Patricia Hampl uses less falsehoods in her stories, her style of writing is more appealing to the reader. Joan Didion uses rhetorical questions in her notebook to engage readers into the story of her notebook writings.
Part of having the story so full of flashbacks connects to one of the main themes of living in the past, or past vs. present. By having Hang relive all of these specific moments in her life, she is showing how Hang in part is living in the past. There is a point in the novel, however where these flashbacks stop. This shows how Hang has developed overtime and has stopped living in the past. Through this the author shows how one should not live in the past, and should instead look forward.
They are usually the characters with barely any dialogue and are predictable. Normally writers just focus on bringing out the protagonist in their stories. However, when Gish Jen writes her stories she also brings out her secondary characters. In Gish Jen’s interview on Connect Literature, she asserts that her secondary characters are often “round” which is not necessarily typical of secondary characters. This paper will explore the ways in which Jen constructs complexity in the secondary characters in her short story “Who’s Irish.” One of the secondary characters used in the story “Who’s Irish,” is named Sophie.
Story Within a Story: The Subtle Confession Expressed Through A Rose For Emily’s Unique Narration William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is the subject of countless literary analyses and scholarly discussions, but the focus too often remains on Emily Grierson’s character. Arguably more deserving of attention are the subtler insinuations delivered throughout the narrative. Faulkner’s narrator ostensibly recalls the tragic life of a strangely enigmatic woman, the sort of tale that would pass into Jeffersonian legend. A closer reading, however, reveals that the unique first-person-plural narrator—the townspeople—are the true subjects of the tale, and Emily Grierson’s tragedy is only a side note in the grand scheme of the story. Through the manipulation of pronouns—transitioning often from we and our to they, not always with the same referents—and chronology, the narrator tells not Emily’s story, but rather describes a personal confession and rationalization.
This idea is later transferred to miscommunication which is an essential part of Tan’s Novels. In “The Joy Luck Club” Amy Tan shows the miscommunication between the two generations and how mothers and daughters are unique through authentic dialect and dialogue. In her books, she presents the conflicting views and the stories of both sides,
Symbolisms of The Journey Shirley Evans English 125 Instructor Kristina Munz April 22, 2013 In the short stories of “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty and “Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys, you would not think they have the same theme. “A Worn Path” is an interesting story of a woman whose journey is motivated by love, with a plot full of symbolism and several themes using third-person point of view; in contrast, “Used to Live Here Once” the narrator is also using third-person point of view, but with limited omniscient. This point of view is used as the narrator is telling the story of an unnamed protagonist whose story plot is of a journey back to a place she once called home, and the symbolism’s are used to communicate the journey as she reflects on her life. The authors of these stories give the reader a glimpse of the personalities and character of both women using the elements of themes, characters, symbolisms, and settings to find a definition which goes beyond the common definition of journey. Everyone has their own description of what a journey is, but the definition spans beyond the definition found in a dictionary.
In taking her readers on this journey, Roach sought to inform them about the strange and important lives of people postmortem, something which is rarely thought about or discussed. She accomplishes this through the use of syntax, a wide variety of facts, and well placed humor. One of the initial things the reader will notice is the way the text is presented, and Mary Roach definitely uses syntax to her advantage. Roach writes in first person, which is unusual for a non-fiction book. By doing this, she makes the book read like a narrative, providing the text with intimacy.
It could either be through good, happy experiences or painful, shocking events that may change our way of growing up. The Psychoanalytic approach focuses on many aspects of an individual unconscious and experiences. It also studies how an individual do not realize his/her form of psychosis which may take control over and may repress emotions. In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Emily Grierson throughout her life she developed her idea of reality and lived as she pleased not concern of what the people would say. “A Rose for Emily”, Emily contains many issues in hand and portrays an individual that through her life has to obey her father’s possessiveness and becomes attached to him, creates a defence mechanism which was her denial of reality and avoidance also her deep fear of abandonment comes between her and happiness.
It is the journey to self-fulfillment that has often led the female through many hard times and struggles. In a similar fashion, the voyage for females to gain control over their own lives and bodies in the 1960’s was difficult. Margaret Laurence portrays this in “The Diviners” as the protagonist, Morag Gunn tells her story with chronological flashbacks helping to narrate the current events in her life. Morag’s road to understanding the self mirrors and is influenced by the time leading up to and during the feminist movement in the 1960’s. Prior to the 1960’s feminist movement, women’s literature was not seen in the same light as it was then.
May these sombre words not come true for as long as possible”. Throughout the novel the audience sees Anne’s journey as she travels through the stages of understanding and the use of diary entries highlight her point of view as she starts to discover the truth of her reality and herself as a young adult. “I’ve changed quite