In Martin Amis’ Times Arrow, the life of a man begins after his death. In other words, Amis writes the story beginning to end but tells the story from the ending identity of Todd T. Friendly to the beginning identity of Odilo Unverdorben. His story is depicted through the eyes of an anonymous narrator who appears to reside in the inner conscious of Todd and accompanies the reader through various discoveries about his life. Additionally, the unique way his story is told expands to a style used to employ mystery, uncertainty, and exposure while following a secret so impactful the possible revelation causes a fatal car wreck for Todd. As the narrator repeats, “John has a secret. Only one of us knows what that secret is. He leaves it undisclosed, …show more content…
As a character, Todd develops naturally when the reader follows the transformation from the identity of Todd to John, from John to Hamilton, and from Hamilton to Odilo. With each new identity, a piece to the puzzling question of his past is revealed, and as Odilo the secret is unveiled. Todd is exposed as being far from innocent, because Odilo Unverdorben is a war criminal, and served as a Nazi doctor at a concentration camp in Auschwitz. For the narrator, relief is conveyed when he says, “The world, after all, here in Auschwitz, has a new habit. It makes sense” (129), because; the narrator believes that he is no longer hurting his patients, but rather healing them. For the reader who is, Todd is a mass murderer, and accordingly, spends the rest of his life transforming into identities to escape the guilt of his ghastly past.
Point-of-view is a flaw in the narrator because when Todd appears to be restoring he is actually destroying. Yet, Todd’s character is inevitably manifested to the reader as being far worse than the narrator accounts for. Amis evolves strong character development despite an untrustworthy narrator by allowing the reader to interpret the events of Todd’s life apart from the narrator. Finally, the reader’s understanding seemingly dominates the narrator’s point-of-view in accuracy and follows
Throughout the autobiographical narrative written by Gary Soto, many different literary elements are used to recreate the experience of his guilty six-year old self. Different elements such as contrast, repetition, pacing, diction, and imagery. Soto narrates this story as a young boy at a time when he seems to be young and foolish, Soto foolmaking mistakes, but at the same time hoping to learn from them. Soto uses each of these devices to convey different occurrences in the narrative.
John Edgar Wideman’s essay “Our Time” presents us the story of his brother Robby. The essay is unique because Wideman uses the “voices” of his brother Robby, his mother, and himself to convey the different perspectives of each person. The author uses the three different points of view in an attempt to express his emotions, and what he was going through while trying to understand the motives behind Robby’s transgressions. Wideman articulates that choices in life are often difficult to make, and other people will be unable to understand the reasons behind a particular choice. In addition to telling Robby’s story, Wideman includes the problems he faced as a writer in order to tell the story from his brother’s point of view.
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.
Often, when a story is told, it follows the events of the protagonist. It is told in a way that justifies the reasons and emotions behind the protagonist actions and reactions. While listening to the story being cited, one tends to forget about the other side of the story, about the antagonist motivations, about all the reasons that justify the antagonist actions.
Body Paragraph #1: Within one incident in the story Andy transitions from thinking like an adolescent, to a realistic view by recognizing the seriousness of his situation and the world
Point of view is one of the single greatest assets an author can use. It helps to move the plot along and show what is happening from a character’s perspective. An author can make the plot more complex by introducing several characters that the reader has to view events through. The events can then be seen through different eyes and mindsets forcing the reader to view the character in a different light. From one perspective a character can seem cruel, yet, from another, the same character can seem like a hero. These vastly contrasting views can be influenced based on the point of view, a character’s background, and the emotions towards them. The novel Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich showcases some examples of events seen from different points
Whether a result of Emma's complex life or Agee's attachment to Emma, Agee's choice of a narrative voice only presents her life through one limited point of view. This may sometimes cause the reader to miss Agee's point. For example, after reading Emma's first person account of her own life the shortcomings of Agee's perspective are made evident.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.
The vision of the mind is easily portrayed through the art of literature, painting a picture with the stroke of words. The natural inspiration that influences the creation of these works is derived from the life and the experiences of the creator. For some, these tales become stories and those stories become novels, but for one man it meant so much more. The works of Edgar Allan Poe became his life; he expressed every feeling and every moment of his existence through ink and paper. Poe involved his entire life in his writing, leaving no element of the story untouched by his trademark of a past. His work became so unique and unorthodox, yet it did not lack the attention it deserved. The American critic, Curtis Hidden Page, suggested that “the essence of his work is logic, logic entirely divorced from reality, and seeming to arise superior to reality” (Quinn 31). The foundation of Poe’s stories seems simple enough, but beneath the surface remains unanswered questions and undiscovered truths, which have yet to be uncovered. The people and experiences throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s lifetime have influenced various themes including: insanity, revenge, death, and guilt which can be distinguished through a collection of his works.
was a naive child at the beginning of the novel, but by the end the
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.
The narrator’s struggle for identity is an example of foreshadowing when he soon discovers how much the darkness frightens him.
Although told in an aloof and anonymous third-person, the narrativeis always shifting, almost imperceptibly, from an objective stance to less neutral observations which, because of their perspective or particular choice of words, appear to be those of Mrs. Kearney. (Miller,...
When writing occurs, the works are distinguished, but no unified meaning is deciphered. It is the option of the reader to decide whether a text contains an inherent meaning or the inability to find meaning at all. The Novella, Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon, allows the reader to determine meaning and to distinguish whether Balthazar’s generous approach possesses an underlying meaning. This concept is relevant to Barthes’s work, which criticizes the author’s intentions versus the interpreted context. The Death of the Author, discusses the theory of how an author enters his own death as the act of writing is taking place. This theory no longer allows the author to have definitive authority over the reader. To prevent “interpretive tyranny,” the reader must be able to separate a work from the inventor and conclude one’s own viewpoint.
The setting of “The Order of the Arrow” is very crucial in the development of events and the depiction of the character’s relationship with each other. The lesson we should learn from the story is that we should never underestimate anyone despite what we assume we know about them. They may be more than what we expect to know about