In the short story “Time and Again” by the author, Breece D’J Pancake recounts the story of a veteran farmer who is a snow plow driver for a living. The nameless narrator is a widower and his son disappeared. Reading the short story for the first time it is apparent that the author makes it a challenge for their reader to understand the story. The story at first is confusing and leaves the reader questioning the character. After a second or third read, it is noticeable that the author sets clues and makes it more obvious that this is a story of a murderer. The author often uses clues and the use of syntax to expose who the narrator is as a character and how that influences his actions. In the beginning of the story, the author’s first …show more content…
After reading the short story, it could be concluded that the author is in fact traumatized and his mental trauma is what leads to his actions. This illness is what blinds him to the seriousness of his evil actions. It could also be concluded that the narrator killed all the people he was talking about with the hitchhiker. The hitchhiker reminded him of his son, therefore restricted the narrator on killing him. Therefore answering the question on why his son left, his son must have seen that the hogs were squealing because the slop the father was feeding them was, in fact, the meat of the people he killed. The reason he killed people was because during work he plowed snow and was consistently reminded on the day he killed many people in France. This being so, it is a known fact that being in a war and fighting in it can cause mental trauma. His wife dying and his son running away added onto his trauma which made him blind to see he was doing a horrifying thing by killing other
“Fire away. Take your best shot, show me what you got. Honey I’m not afraid (Chris, Lines 4-5)…” Strength, love, heartache, all words that many people can identify with, but what about mental illness, depression, and suicide. These words are those that humans avoid, pretend they are not there, but in reality those three words effect many more people that was ever thought possible. Over 18.2% of United States citizens suffer from a mental illness (Depression), 6.7% of United States citizens suffer from depression (Depression), and each year in the United States there are on average 42,773 deaths by suicide (American). Now, many people can relate to the words love and heartbreak, but many more can identify with the three words that the world
The figurative language expresses emotions. Words can only classify emotions. However they are unfathomable and can only be expressed through “exaggerations”. To compare one self to the author’s feeling is the only way for the emotion to be understood. The repetition is used to show the struggle of letting go of the past. O’Brien becomes a writer and finds that he can’t let go so easily. He writes stories more than once to find a point in why it haunts him and why he must move on.
Last but not least, O’Connor confirms that even a short story is a multi-layer compound that on the surface may deter even the most enthusiastic reader, but when handled with more care, it conveys universal truths by means of straightforward or violent situations. She herself wished her message to appeal to the readers who, if careful enough, “(…)will come to see it as something more than an account of a family murdered on the way to Florida.”
In the story, “The Killing Game”, Joy Williams, uses several diffenent types of writing skills to presuade the reader to see her views.
Two plays, twenty years apart helped to depict two very important periods in African American history. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, premiered in 1984, and Dutchman premiered in 1964 help to show the development of the black mind set in certain periods of history. Dutchman, written during the black arts period (1960-1975); helped to show how African Americans constantly fought to escape the classic stereotypes that they were associated with. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, written for the Contemporary Period, told the story of how first generation black people after the signing of the emancipation proclamation, fought to find their identity, not only as black people but also religiously.
I frankly confess that I have, as a general thing, but little enjoyment of it, and that it has never seemed to me to be, as it were, a first-rate literary form. . . . But it is apt to spoil two good things – a story and a moral, a meaning and a form; and the taste for it is responsible for a large part of the forcible-feeding writing that has been inflicted upon the world. The only cases in whi...
There is perhaps a no more plangent or evocative melody played from the brass bugle than that of “Taps”. The sounding of the song arouses in the listener a sense of melancholy, solemnity, remembrance, and loss; a stirring of the soul to recall the essence of a life lost in military service. Often accompanied by a 21-gun salute, “Taps” as a burial ceremony has been employed since July of 1862, where the notes were first scrawled on the back of an envelope by a Union general in the aftermath of the Seven Day Battle in order to memorialize the loss of his soldiers. The notes have a scourging effect on the listener, leaving one cornered to countenance the forbidding realities of death and sacrifice. Indeed, “Taps”, calls out
The disturbing description of the serial killer is recited without any waver whatsoever away from the intent only to divulge information. The narrator makes no personal comment and expresses no opinion about Howard. After the narrator has given the information to the listener, the narrator leads the train of thought right back to the work environment. The idea of a horrible mass murderer is interrupted by his typing ability. This continued contrast now goes past unstable and borders on psychotic.
Bryan, James. The Psychological Structure of The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Modern Language Association, 1974.
The fragment we were given is a three paragraph narration that has longer sentences at the beginning and little by little begins shortening them until by the final paragraph they are very short. The long sentences being used to slow down the time that will be very important in the passage and hence to build up the suspense and tension in the ambience until the sentences become short and speed up the time in the story, building the tension more and more to a point where it seems like something is coming or something will occur. The story is also told by a protagonist narrator which we know thanks to the use of the first person and the direct access to the character’s mind along with his feelings and thoughts. This narrator is retelling us the story (“I have naturally no wish to enlarge on this phase of my story. (…) I would have passed it over if I didn’t think that some account of it was necessary for a full understanding of what follows”[line 19-20]) of his trip over to Ransom’s house, a path which will trigger his paranoia and fear. The style of the writing is very direct as the narrator is practically in a one-sided dialogue with his readers.
Style is a literary technique that authors use to reveal information about various aspects of the narrative. Style can be utilized as a way for the audience to read between the lines and unveil key information. Pejorative language expresses criticism and bad opinions. Flannery O'Connor's pejorative style is exhibited in many of her short stories. From the dialogue of a convict in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” to the thoughts of not so wise Hulga in “Good Country People” her pejorative style unveils the perceptions of characters.
A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct from a reflection of the real events. It is a construction, Sacks chose the elements that were included and omitted in the narrative and used narrative strategies to position readers to process the signs in the text and produce reach the dominant understanding. This blurring of truth and fiction is similar to that in the genre of ‘new journalism’. Although, rather than being a journalist writing a fictional piece of journalism, Sacks is a doctor writing a fictional medical analysis. To influence readers’ comprehension of the narrative, Sacks utilised the point of view strategy of subjective narration, atypical in this short story in that a characterisation or representation of Oliver Sacks is the narrator and Oliver Sacks the person is the real author. The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven and regardless of how accurate a depiction of the real people the characters are, they are constructions. Sacks gave the characters of Doctor P. and his namesake admirable and sympathetic trait...
In conclusion, it is hard to grasp the true meaning of the story unless the story is read a second time because of the author's style of writing.
In addition to vocabulary, Poe’s use of repetition ensures that his audience will appreciate the deeper meaning of his writing and understand which concepts are important in his stories. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator, after stating that he is not insane, goes on to describe “how stealthily, stealthily” (Long) he proceeds when going into of the elderly man and blighting the room with the lantern. The repetition of “stealthily” demonstrates just how sneaky and narrator is, suggesting that he is crazy.
A typical story is littered with details, explaining the history of the world the story takes place in, who the characters in the story are, all the while remaining correlated to the plot and subplots that drive the story forward. The story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson however does not follow these conditions, as the reader is left to interpret a majority of the story on their own as it progresses. Jackson is not the only writer to incorporate a style of selective exposition in their work; Raymond Carver is widely recognized for his rejection of explanation and the use of characters that do not always communicate with one another, both of which are elements which Jackson incorporates into her own story. Initially, a lack of exposition may seem detrimental to the story, but instead it plays to the “mysterious nature of story” according to Charles E. May in his essay ‘Do You See What I’m Saying?’: The Inadequacy of Explanation and the uses of Story in the Short Fiction of Raymond Carver. Therefore, by refusing to expound upon setting, characters, and plot allows the author to create mystery, and the reader to form their own interpretations of the story.