Everything’s not okay In Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School, the narrator, a young and aspiring writer, plagiarizes a story that he views as his own in order to win his high school writing competition and impress his hero, Ernest Hemingway. “Summer Dance,” the story that he plagiarized—where “nothing was okay”—ends with the words, “Everything’s okay” (p. 125). The narrator’s truth, complicated and elusive, proves a challenge to admit as his own. As he considers writing someone else’s story, the narrator realizes how concealing his identity compromises the value of his writing and places his personal truth in question. The narrator uses others’ stories as an outlet for personal reflection, self-expression, and self-discovery without realizing …show more content…
the grave repercussions of doing so. His skewed view of plagiarism is an indication of his misperception of himself, which leads to his downfall—where nothing is okay, but ultimately, everything is okay. As the narrator begins typing out “Summer Dance,” the author uses language that indicates both a sense of shame and a sense of relief. After reading the story, the narrator admits feeling as if his “inmost vault had been been smashed open and looted and every hidden thing spread out across these pages” (p. 125). The author’s specific word choice, including “smashed” and “looted,” illustrates how the narrator feels that he is being unwillingly and prematurely unmasked by the truth of the story. The phrase “inmost vault” accurately depicts the narrator’s hidden self, for a vault is locked, protected, controlled, and kept private. The expressive language used by the author helps articulate the narrator’s thoughts, which emphasizes the stark contrast between his inner self and external persona. The narrator makes clear his personal connection to the story when he refers to it as “the truthful diary I’d never kept” (125). The author uses vivid imagery to illustrate the narrator’s relationship with the truth.
Every time the narrator tries to confront the truth, he moves farther away from it. The typewriter serves as a barometer of his truthfulness. As he typed “I hope nobody saw me…” the keys jammed, and after he fixed them, they jammed again. “The sentence did not want to be written, but I wrote it still” (126). It is as if the typewriter is telling him to stop and look at those words twice, indicating he knew what he was doing was somehow wrong; however, he couldn’t acknowledge his deceit. He continues to struggle to control the typewriter’s behavior: “The typewriter kept inching back, and as it retreated I leaned farther and farther over the desk until the discomfort broke my trance” (126). It is as though the typewriter is trying to escape his lie by inching away. When the typing position becomes too awkward, he temporarily is awakened from his coma of deceit as he must reposition the typewriter. He then must “pace the room a while to ease his back before bending once again to work” (127). Pacing the room suggests that he subconsciously realizes that what he is doing is wrong. The phrase “Bending once again to work” is a play on words: the narrator both bends the truth and stoops below his perceived image of himself in an attempt to win the writing competition and gain the admiration of his
peers. The narrator’s willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain his image and be accepted by his peers can be seen when he takes a brief truthful look at himself before sitting down to write the story. He recalls how he relates to “ the throwing-over of old friends for new, the shameless manipulation of a needy, loving parent and the desperation to flee not only the need but the love itself” (125). He would throw those closest to him away in order to distance himself from his true self. He can see the ugliness in his pursuit of this alternate identity that he wishes to achieve at any cost: “Sycophancy, lies, self-suppression, the masking of ambitions and desires, and the slow cowardly burn toward those for whose favor you have falsified yourself” (125-126). He realizes everything in Susan’s story as true about himself. While those words give him a crystal-clear view of himself, he cannot see that stealing those words is the ultimate confirmation that those words are true. Incapable of removing his mask, the narrator moves farther from his true identity. Isolated from his innermost self, the narrator copies “Summer Dance” to satisfy his deep-seated desires to express his emotions and come to terms with his past. Ironically, as the narrator attempts to confess the truth, he further descends the downward spiral of duplicity. As he works on writing his version of “Summer Dance,” the narrator declares, “To strip yourself of pretense is to overthrow a hard master, the fear of giving yourself away...” (126). The narrator is a slave to pretense: his dependence upon a mask constrains him and prevents him from listening to the voice of truth. One can only start to explore the human condition after he has disbanded this pretense and accepted his true identity. Little by little, the narrator determines his own faults and realizes the normality of imperfection.
“The plagiarists Tale” is an article about Quentin Rowan a man that went by the pen name Q. R. Markham. He wrote “assassin of secrets” a spy novel, after the publication of the novel James Bond fans found many similarities between the two. After further investigation results showed Quentin has plagiarized using many different novels as example. After word got out to the public the publishing company was infuriated and instantly took the novel off bookstore shelves. He said “I wish I could do it all over” he regretted everything he did. Quentin faced his consequences and is currently having a problem finding work.
Authors of great stories often use good technical writing skills. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast two short stories: Where Are you going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates and Hills Like White Elephants by Earnest Hemingway. The comparison and contrast will be done based on their use of plot, point of view and character development.
“Roman Fever” and “Hills Like White Elephants” are two stories that on surface seem very different from one another, but through careful analysis the two are quite similar. Their similarities are mainly evident through the significant use of the dialogues in the both stories. “Roman Fever” has a third person omniscient narrator which the author allows to know the inner private thoughts of both characters, Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley. In contrast, “Hills Like White Elephants” is composed in a third person limited narrative where very little is known about the thoughts of both Jig and the American. At first Ernest Hemingway’s short story can clearly be viewed as the most ambiguous out of the two. With its simplistic style, written mostly in straightforward dialogue which leaves the readers to contemplate over the ultimate outcome of the story and forces them to ...
Francine Prose is a mother, a writer, a book reviewer, and most importantly, a massive critic of the type of literature that is demanded of children to read in American high schools. In a very defensive essay, Prose discusses a variety of books that she believes are a wast of actual literature. She uses a variety of rhetoric to attract the reader’s attention, and uses it to also persuade her readers to see things the way she does. Throughout the essay it becomes more apparent that the author makes multiple inferences of what she believes will happen to the generations that will entire a corrupt educational system. In the essay that Prose writes, she explains that the lack of eloquent literature is causing a demise to the education of teenagers
Callahan, John. "Review of Love and Trouble." Short Story Criticism Vol. 5. (Essay date 1974).
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story.
Pike, Gerald. “Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers.” Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research International Limited, 1990. 90. Print.
In ‘unreliable narration’ the narrator’s account is at odds with the implied reader's surmises about the story’s real intentions. The story und...
Rebecca Makkai’s short story, “The Briefcase” embraces Hemingway’s self-described Iceberg Theory of writing. Bare and cold, “The Briefcase” is a story of omission; the structure deep beneath the surface of the printed word floating on a page. Makkai’s war time setting is like a treatise on life. The need to live find us drifting, grasping for self-definition. It matters who we are as individuals; to make sense of our lives. Makkai turns us upside down; our puffed up secure universe of self. War reveals our real self is only concerned about survival. Life is about surviving hard times. If you haven’t had hard times, keep living.
Written stories differ in numerous ways, but most of them have one thing in common; they all have a narrator that, on either rare occasions or more regularly, help to tell the story. Sometimes, the narrator is a vital part of the story since without him or her, it would not be possible to tell the story in the same way, and sometimes, the narrator has a very small role in the story. However, he or she is always there, and to compare how different authors use, and do not use, this outside perspective writing tool, a comparison between Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly will be done.
Throughout the 20th century there were many influential pieces of literature that would not only tell a story or teach a lesson, but also let the reader into the author’s world. Allowing the reader to view both the positives and negatives in an author. Ernest Hemingway was one of these influential authors. Suffering through most of his life due to a disturbingly scarring childhood, he expresses his intense mental and emotional insecurities through subtle metaphors that bluntly show problems with commitment to women and proving his masculinity to others.
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol 39. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Short Story
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
In novels or other literary works many authors write about things they dream about. Many write about what stories they have heard from fellow companions. None have written about such vivid, yet traumatic experiences as the twentieth century writer, Ernest Hemingway. That is why Hemingway's tend to concur to his real life experiences.
An article published in 1913 titled, “Chronicle and Comment” from The Bookman highlights some of the negative criticism that Ernest Hemingway received. In this article, criticism is given towards Hemingway’s work based on support of another review titled, “What is Dirt?” by Robert Herrick. Here, the authors feel that Hemingway’s work is merely a picture of contemporary life rather than a contribution to literature. When looking at the love story between Catherine and Frederick, the article cheapens the love story by claiming that it is “the story of a Scotch nurse made irresponsible by heartbreak and an American...