English Revision Task How have the texts studied in this elective challenged your ways of thinking about "People and Politics"? People and politics are able to represent their own ideas and perspectives by utilising different techniques to bring forward a stronger influence and convey meaning. The multiple methods and procedures in which to form representation has challenged my ways of thinking about 'People and Politics'. W.H. Auden utilises satire to communicate the negative perspective of dictators in "Epitaph of a Tyrant" (1939).
“The critic asks “is this believable?” The novelist, “how can I get them to believe this”? In short she argues that a good novelist always has some sort of conflict to tell and it must be suspenseful. “Something other than breakfast”. She uses witty humour to loosen the audience up. Atwood discusses the several genres of fiction that are available in this time and explains how this is not only a time of gender crossover but of genre crossover.
In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front the reader can infer that the narrator Paul Baumer as we know him in the novel is very different from Paul Baumer before he experienced war. He had plans to write a play and a love of literature that was lost after experiencing the horror of life in the trenches. It is shown in his apparent aestheticism, inability to fantasize beyond reality, and his lack of faith in the human race. The things Paul experienced truly changed his life. Throughout the novel Paul seems to leave his emotions behind in order to survive.
Faulkner talk about a writer not writing from his heart, and how “His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars.” I believe that by bringing us into is world, Richard makes his pains our pains, thus doing as Faulkner says a writer should do, “grieving on universal bones”. Next, in his second paragraph, Richard reverses the feelings of the reader, shedding new light on the topic of his parents, making them out to almost seem like bad people for not being educated. What’s really special about this essay is that we know the parents have done nothing wrong, and don’t deserve the poor treatment they receive from their son, we can understand it
CUSTOMS AND BONDS A piece of writing, as in every form of art, is a manifestation of its creator. Authors include fragments of themselves, their history, and their experiences for either personal motive or simply to establish a moral connection with the reader. In The Custom House, Nathaniel Hawthorne's introduction to his novel The Scarlet Letter, an unnamed narrator establishes a connection with the reader through personal anecdote, history, and emotion. This anonymous customs officer is not Hawthorne himself, rather an idealized figment of the author's imagination, a vehicle to deliver personal motives and apprehensions. It can then be said that the purpose of this piece is to act as a bond to Hawthorne's past, present, and views toward his strong familial ties to an area so rich with religious fervor, giving a glimpse into the realities caused by his own family and past.
The penultimate sentence in this paragraph speaks of “Influencers disconnected from the seasoned wisdom of friends and mentors” (emphasis added). This wordplay relating the “connectedness” of social media to the reality of disconnection from people not only tickles the funny bone of literarily minded readers, but also adds to his logical case against the overuse of social media. Hansen also appeals to the credibility of others by referencing books and authors. This helps us see his intended audience more clearly as he does this. First he references a quote about the middle class from Alexis de Tocqueville “in his famous book Democracy in America” (emphasis added).
In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, Carver sends a deep message to the reader. The narrator in the story has emotional problems. The narrator’s eyes are closed as a result of his ignorance, jealously and prejudice. As a way to escape from reality and his own problems, the narrator uses alcohol and other things. Robert, an old friend from his wife teaches the narrator a great lesson about life and how “learning never ends.” Robert opens the eyes of the narrator.
In this story, Hemingway uses three main characters to explain who exactly those three main groups of people are. According to Hemingway, people occur as either crazy, sensible, or out of place with each role played by Adolph Francis, Bugs, and Nick Adams, respectively. With his subtle use of simple words and phrasing, Hemingway allows for each character to make the reader realize that each represents one of the main groups of people. Hemingway uses the character Adolph Francis to portray the crazy people in the world. Now, when Hemingway introduces Ad into the story, he is seen as a normal person.
While most Diaspora writers show the exiles’ anxiety for dining roots in their works, Gao Jingjian has sought an outlet for his character in One Man’s Bible: living a rootless life with freedom, away from authoritarian governance. Being an exile is not just a cultural identity that enables You to expel from the traumatic history, but also a state of being that could possibly reach freedom. The narrated You have learned the essence of freedom throughout the novel. It is one’s conscious sense of life, of who isolate oneself from others (Chapter 39). To achieve this You have to release himself from the previous traumatic memories in China, get rid of the past and merely live in the present (p.10).
The three main characters in this essay are the Box Man, the lady at the coffee shop and the lady across the way. She uses the Box Man, a man who has chosen his loneliness and “lives the life of the mind” (Ascher par 12). The thesis of Ascher is that we must accept are [our] loneliness and embrace our imagination, by doing this we can find solace in our self. Ascher states, “All humans are estranged from each other, regardless of their relationships, because of the impossibility of true communion and pure communication.” [Ascher does not say this. This is my explanation or analysis of Ascher’s thesis taken from “Understanding ‘The Box Man’” without any attribution or sourcing.]