The Study of Existents in Sandpiper
In a short story like "Sandpiper", where the protagonist does little except move around in her beach-house in an uneventful afternoon, thinking her thoughts, readers must look for an attraction alternative to the plot. Indeed, the writer, Ahdaf Soueif, has chosen to offer to us an interesting array of existents, in place of the story line, as the main focus of this narrative. In the following essay, I shall discuss how existents--the collection of characters and setting--are used to invoke feelings of dispossession and displacement in the story "Sandpiper", which are essential in raising the main issue of the story, which is the question of one's identity.
Having agreed that the event itself, a summer afternoon spent at a beach-house, is rather inconsequential, we go on to deduce that the actions of our characters, since they do not contribute to the plot, are actually reflections of their personality. This is what French structuralist, Tzvetan Todorov proposed as a characteristic of psychological narratives, narratives which place their main focus on the development of their characters (Chatman 114). We can therefore, identify distinctive traits belonging to the characters by observing their actions.
The characters in this narrative are few: namely the protagonist, "I"; her estranged husband (she refers to him as "her lover"); her daughter, Lucy and her husband's old nanny, Um Sabir. Since it is only the protagonist that appears most often and to whom the readers interact directly, I shall focus most of my discussion based on her development . Our protagonist, "I," can be further differentiated into the narrator, I-now and the character, I-then. I-now is the present figure that has ...
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...his narrative is such that we follow the chain of thoughts of our protagonist "I" as she considers the repercussions of her broken marriage. Since we only interact directly with her, we become persuaded to take her point of view, thus her problem becomes our problem too. In its effective use of character, by focusing the essay on one specific character and endowing her with specific traits relevant to bring out the issues concerned and by setting up the story in an environment that can both draw responses from the protagonist as well as clearly portray her feelings to us, "Sandpiper" has successfully raised the question on one's identity.
Works Cited
Soueif, Ahdaf. "Sandpiper". Sandpiper. London: Bloomsbury, 1997: 23 - 36.
Chatman, Seymour. "Existents". Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1978: 107 - 145.
Galchen creates the character of her narrator to be very similar to that of the young narrator in “Araby” in a modern setting. In their youth, each narrator becomes infatuated and obsessed with someone who does not realize. The narrator of “Araby” falls in love with his friend Mangan’s sister, as seen in that he states that “when she came out on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (123). He forms an obsession with her, as evidenced by the fact that he “had never spoken to her . . . and yet her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” and in that “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance” (123).
Chatman, Seymour, "Existents." Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1978. 107-126, 131-145.
The effect of an individual 's personal experience may be one of the controlling factors of their life. In the short story “The Hand”, Yves Theriault presents the idea of the importance of an individual 's personal experience, and the effects of these experiences on their life. Yves shows how these personal experiences are important to one’s life, because it is in control of how an individual will change, and how it will develop their character and personality. This is shown by the character Géron, where one event in his life changed a personality trait that he had for most of his life. Many of my personal experiences could relate to Géron’s incident, where a small event had a large impact in my life, and how the story of our life is influenced
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In the story, the narrator is forced to tell her story through a secret correspondence with the reader since her husband forbids her to write and would “meet [her] with heavy opposition” should he find her doing so (390). The woman’s secret correspondence with the reader is yet another example of the limited viewpoint, for no one else is ever around to comment or give their thoughts on what is occurring. The limited perspective the reader sees through her narration plays an essential role in helping the reader understand the theme by showing the woman’s place in the world. At ...
Elasticity is the responsiveness of demand or supply to the changes in prices or income. There are various formulas and guidelines to follow when trying to calculate these responses. For instance, when the percentage of change of the quantity demanded is greater then the percentage change in price, the demand is known to be price elastic. On the other hand, if the percentage change in demand is less than then the percentage change in price; Like that of demand, supply works in a similar way. When the percentage change of quantity supplied is greater than the percentage change in price, supply is know to be elastic. When the percentage change of quantity supplied is less then the percentage change in price, then the supply then demand is known to be price inelastic.
Elasticity of demand is an important variation on concept of Law of Demand. Demand can be classified as perfectly elastic, elastic, inelastic, unitary and perfectly inelastic. An elastic demand is one in which the change in quantity demanded due to a change in price is large. An inelastic demand is one in which the change in quantity demanded due to a change in price is small. An unitary demand is when quantity changes at the same rate as price.
Several literary devices are implemented in the novel to convey the author’s experiences and feelings, thus contributing to the overall appeal of the writing. In his younger years
Mittel, J., 2007. Film and Television Narrative. In: D. Herman, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.156-171.
Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story, but give significance as well. The point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel. The author chooses to write the novel through the eyes of the main character and narrator, Jack. Jack’s perception of the world is confined to an eleven foot square room.
Throughout “Araby”, the main character experiences a dynamic character shift as he recognizes that his idealized vision of his love, as well as the bazaar Araby, is not as grandiose as he once thought. The main character is infatuated with the sister of his friend Mangan; as “every morning [he] lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door…when she came on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (Joyce 108). Although the main character had never spoken to her before, “her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” (Joyce 108). In a sense, the image of Mangan’s sister was the light to his fantasy. She seemed to serve as a person who would lift him up out of the darkness of the life that he lived. This infatuation knew no bounds as “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance…her name sprang to [his] lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which [he] did not understand” (Joyce 109). The first encounter the narrator ex...
There is a great deal of ongoing debate surrounding the issue of religion in public schools. When you consider the rights of all Americans under the Constitution’s First Amendment, it is outrageous for the United States of America to have “freedom of religion”, and then place excessive limitations on students and teachers in public schools. There are a growing number of people opposed to the idea of religion being in school for a variety of reasons, from which the Government’s solution was to impose restrictions on all religions and deny others their rights in the defense of protecting the rights of a few. Teachers and students of all faiths should be able to attend a public school and freely express their beliefs without these limitations being imposed.
Religion in school can be defined as the practice of any personal religious belief or act in a place of education. To say that religion is a big topic of interest to a lot of people in the United States today is a bit of an understatement. The debate over the separation of church and state has been going on without end for years. With many different perspectives on the matter and even more opinions on how it should be handled. Since the beginning many people have challenged the role that religion has played in education. Should schools teach religion? If so, can they do it evenhandedly? Will they misinterpret the religion wrong? How many people would be offended? Would we be better off without it so that it doesn’t cause controversy? The problem is can we truly answer any of these arguments without the opposite side disagreeing? Many of these questions are rooted from the same controversy that is happening in schools today. Aside from the separation of church and states comes one of the vastly debatable topics of education allowing religion which is prayer in school. While a few believe that prayer in school is constructive to the development of a child and their faith, others may conclude that it could completely denounce the faith of a child. Because this is an ongoing controversy further research on whether religion should or should not be allowed in public education is usually boils down to two major points the First Amendment and is religion good for our children? Could we potentially have a compromise or could the two opposing sides meet somewhere in the middle?
The proposed multimodel segmentation was tested with almost all combination of mass shapes and margins in CC and MLO views and the segmented abnormal region was verified with ground truth table images in which abnormality marked by radiologist in the DDSM database. Further feature extraction methods and classifier has to be developed for fully automated diagnosis CAD system. Further study has to be carried out to test the algorithm for the segmentation of micro calcifications.
Price elasticity of demand illiterates the change in quantity demanded as price changes. Elasticity is the responsiveness of how a simple change in one variable can escalate another change in particular the change in demand and supply. The formula for calculating the price elastic demand is Price Elasticity of Demand = % ∆ In Quantity Demand / % ∆ In Price. Relating to Price elasticity demand an example I can give is assuming that the prices of electricity went up by 50% and purchases of electric went down by 25% by using the formula above we can calculate that the price elasticity of electric is Price Elasticity = (-25%) / (50%) = - 0.50. Therefore for every percentage electric increases the quantity purchases decreases by half a percentage. Price elasticity is usually negative which is stated in the example as electric prices goes up the quaintly of electric demanded will drop. In addition it means that it cooperates with the law of demand as price increases quantity demand decreases. The understanding of price elasticity is very important to know how the relationship between the price and demand of the product and how it can determine the products demand. If the quantity demanded changes a lot while the price changes a little bit that products is elastic this can mainly be products which have alternatives and products which can change consumers mind if price changes by even 1p. For example if the price of paracetamol A increases the quantity demanded will fall when consumers swap to the cheaper paracetamol B. No change in price and no change in demand this product is inelastic. For example as the price of petroleum i...