An Analysis of Narrative Style of Leo Lionni's Frederick

560 Words2 Pages

An Analysis of Narrative Style of Leo Lionni's Frederick

Frederick, a children’s book written by Leo Lionni, is considered a classic in this genre. It received the Caldecott Honor, was an ALA Notable Children’s Book, and was a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year. The book is a fable of a mouse, Frederick, who is the dreamer in a group of tiny field mice. Frederick, the main character, demonstrates the importance of dreams and imagination by giving his fellow field mice a feeling of comfort through his memories of warmth, color, and words during a drab cold winter. Through Frederick’s supply of memories, the mice were able to make it through a hard time. Through the narrative style and structure, Lionni finds a way for children and adults alike to find a message on their own and learn from someone as small as a tiny field mouse.

Frederick is written in a third person’s point of view. The narrator is not Frederick or one of the other field mice in the story, but rather an outside person, or perhaps a mouse, who tells the story. By telling the sto...

Show More
Related

  • Charles Baxter's Gryphon, Tommy Defends Mrs. Ferenczi

    479 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Charles Baxter’s short story “Gryphon” Tommy defends Mrs. Ferenczi, for two main reasons. First, she’s different than everyone else in five oaks; she makes things up about weird and interesting stories that aren't necessarily true.  Tommy has never met anyone like her and enjoys having her around, and as the story unfolds, we see that the more intense and odd  Mrs. Freneczi becomes, the greater lengths Tommy goes to defend her. (This is the second part of the prompt, which you haven’t addressed. If you added a bit more information from the text along these lines, your essay would be complete.

    Read More

  • Human Lot To Try And Fail Analysis

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Of Mice and Men, the author attempts to portray the hardships that a man attempts to face yet fails to withstand. Set in the post-depression era, the book depicts the harsh truth of the

    Read More

  • Comparing 'Of Mice And Men And To A Mouse'

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    The authors John Steinbeck and Robert Burns approach their ideas in very different ways, while having the same themes the reader comprehends key concepts in a different light. Throughout the short story “Of Mice and Men” and the poem “To a Mouse” the theme of hope is a key concept, even though while in both stories their hope did not bring them their happiness, friendship brought them together. Correspondingly while having similar themes of friendship, loneliness, and hope, this all takes place in different settings with different characters.

    Read More

  • The Life and Works of Ezra Jack Keats

    1874 Words  | 4 Pages

    After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for political commentary as some might suggest or was he simply another “childhood” that had; until that time, been ignored? If so, what inspired him to move in this direction?

    Read More

  • Of Mice And Men

    612 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck brings out the themes of Lonliness and companionship, and strengths and weaknesses through the actions, and quotations of the characters. Irony and foreshadowing play a large roll on how the story ends. Lennie and his habit of killing things not on purpose, but he is a victim of his own strength. George trying to pretend that his feelings for Lennie mean nothing. The entire novel is repetitive in themes and expressed views.

    Read More

  • Benedict's Theory Of Obedience

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    They respond to the superiors order as though there were from God. (Luke 10:16,) “Anyone who listens to you listens to me.” Instant response to command and the ability to giving up ones will, discontinuing work at the sound of the bell as a result of obedience, and this portrays the fear of God. Obedience will be acceptable to God and agreeable to man if done without complaining, Luke warmness, grumbling, and without delay. Obedience is motivated by love because their desire is to seek and do the will of God, in imitation of the master they are serving. (John 6:38). Furthermore, obedience must be done freely and in a joyful spirit. St. Paul in 2cor 9:7 says, “God loves a cheerful

    Read More

  • Raymond Carver's Cathedral

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator, his wife, and the blind man spend the evening talking, but eventually the wife falls asleep. The narrator is uncomfortable about being left alone with a blind man. There is something about cathedrals on TV and the blind man asks the narrator to describe what a cathedral looks like. The narrator only describes physical things and so the blind man decides that they should try drawing one instead. As they draw the blind man and the narrator connect and a transformation in the narrator?s character takes place.

    Read More

  • The Importance of Helping Friends in Leo Lionni's, Frederick and Swimmy

    510 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frederick shows that just because he is not working with the other mice does not mean that he is not helping out. He is just doing it in another way. While the others are working to gather food for the winter, Frederick just sits there and takes in other things such as the "sunrays for the cold dark winter days", and "colors for the winter is gray", and finally words "for the winter days are long and many, and we'll run out of things to say"(3). The other mice may not believe what Frederick is saying, however in the end when they are cold and the sky is gray, and they are at a loss for words, they turn to Frederick who in turn shares with them everything that he had been saving up. By Leo Lionni writing this, he was able to show that people can help out others in many ways. Although Frederick was not doing the same things as the other mice, in the end he helped his friends to survive the long, cold, dark winter.

    Read More

  • Of Mice and Men is one of John Steinbeck

    1764 Words  | 4 Pages

    Scarseth, Thomas. "A Teachable Good Book: Of Mice and Men." Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints. Ed. Nicholas J. Karolides, John M. Kean, and Lee Burress Scarecrow Press, 1993. 388-394. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Los Angeles Public Library. 4-16-2014.

    Read More

  • Of Mice and Men

    1198 Words  | 3 Pages

    Written in 1937, Of Mice and Men, by John Adolf Steinbeck Jr., American author and Pulitzer Prize winner, follows the lives of downtrodden farmhands, George and Lennie. As with many of Steinbeck's books, the themes in Of Mice and Men include his favored themes of class warfare and oppression of the working class. Steinbeck also focuses his literature on the power of friendship and the corrupt nature of mankind. In 1993, Professor Thomas Scarseth wrote a critical analysis of the novella analyzing many aspects of Steinbeck’s work including the presentation, themes, and writing style. In his essay, Scarseth explains the key themes of the Novella. He noted that the corrupted nature of man, the injustice of life, and the power of friendship were three important themes of the book. Much of Scarseth’s analysis contained numerous thoughtful insights. Were his insights and opinions valid, or were his, and Steinbeck’s, perspectives on these issues flawed?

    Read More

  • Rise of Photography in the World of Art

    1437 Words  | 3 Pages

    The rise of photography began in the early 1830’s in France, and wasn’t very popular as most artists preferred a paintbrush and canvas to a new contraption that wasn’t popular and wasn’t manufactured locally or globally yet and that was fairly expensive to try to produce, and since this time it has been debated if photography deserves its place in the art world. Through the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s it grew in popularity and throughout time photography went from being badly received to a new form of art though people around the world still debate if it is indeed “art”. Photography has a long history from the first camera obscura in the 18th century to the latest Nikon or Canon camera in the 21st century.

    Read More

  • Peter Rabbit and Voices in the Park

    2035 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Voices in the Park were published at either end of the twentieth century, a period which witnessed the creation of the modern picturebook for children. They are both extremely prestigious examples of picturebooks of their type, the one very traditional, the other surrealist and postmodern. The definition of ‘picturebook’ used here is Bader’s: ‘an art form [which] hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning of the page’ (Bader, quoted in Montgomery, 2009, p. 211). In contrast with a simple illustrated book, the picturebook can use all of the technology available to it to produce an indistinguishable whole, the meaning and value of which is dependent on the interplay between all or any of these aspects. Moebius’s claim that they can ‘portray the intangible and invisible[…], ideas that escape easy definition in pictures or words’ is particularly relevant to these two works. Potter’s book is, beneath its didactic Victorian narrative, remarkably subtle and subversive in its attitudes towards childhood, and its message to its child readers. Browne’s Voices in the Park, on the other hand, dispenses with any textual narrative; by his use of the devices of postmodernism, visual intertextuality and metaphor, he creates a work of infinite interpretation, in which the active involvement of the reader is key.

    Read More

  • Realism In Of Mice And Men Essay

    443 Words  | 1 Pages

    Friendship ends with a tragic death. The book “Of Mice and Men” helps decipher realistic events, characters from cities and lower classes, and speech patterns. The main points of this essay are to analyze the realism values presented in this book.

    Read More

  • Striving For Strength: How to be a Strong Christian

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ost importantly, we need to apply the Bible verses in our real life. In James 1:23-24, it is written that “For if you listen to the word, and don’t obey, it is like glaring at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.” It is pointless to go see in the mirror and forget what you look like after you walk away from the mirror, just as it is meaningless to observe the HEART rule, but not allow the Bible to become our daily code of conduct. Isn’t it a waste of our time and energy if we obediently adhere to the HEART principle, but never consider applying what the Bible tells us to do in real life?

    Read More

  • Sex in the Romance Novel

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tempting the Negotiator has the most delicate touch off all three; there is a lot of sexual tension, but the description of the act itself is lightly done. The writer uses it as a tool to further the story, rather than the story hanging on the sex. Her characters are allowed to develop in a more natur...

    Read More

More about An Analysis of Narrative Style of Leo Lionni's Frederick

Open Document