In the poem “Wolf Lake” by Elizabeth Bachinsky and the non-fiction film Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog, both authors illustrate a type of discrimination in society through the use of point of view and genre. Bachinsky highlights the dehumanizing effect on victims after naming them ‘the bod(ies)’ and Herzog depicts the border drawn between society and nature through the critiques of a man’s devotion to bears. The point of view determines the method of persuasion, display of the story, and language used to illustrate arguments. Both stories exhibit the perspective of the protagonist, the poem is lead by the injured girl found in the woods and the film displays Timothy Treadwell’s personal videos. However, Herzog widens the perspective by including variety of point of views through interviews of other characters related to Treadwell’s journey. Additionally, the development of the story in relation to point of view differs for Herzog tells the audience of Treadwell’s death immediately whereas Bachinsky does not conclude the poem with whether the girl survives or not. Lastly, the imagery in the poem is displayed through figurative language which contrasts the film’s vivid sceneries. Although both display a similar message against societal notions, their points of view and genres allow them to be illustrated differently. Herzog’s use of the multiple points of views helps develop the background context on Treadwell’s journey, while Bachinsky’s use of the first person point of view creates an intimate relationship between the protagonist and the reader. Herzog’s film is objective because he justifies his argument through interviews of people who agreed, disagreed, and were neutral with Treadwell’s work. Instead of only displaying Treadwell... ... middle of paper ... ...the connotation associated with “the body” or the boundary between humans and nature, the lesson of both pieces are centred around problems in society’s perception. However, through the genre and use of the point of view, Bachinsky and Herzog illustrate their didactic purposes in contrasting pieces. First of all, the amount of point of view differs for Herzog includes a wider perspective with interviews of people were relevant to Treadwell and his journey. These different amounts of point of view lead to separate developments of the storyline. Lastly, the separate genres and points of view creates a distinction in the language used by the authors. This displays the importance of the use of point of view in literature and films to develop an argument. With the proper use of point of view, the author is able to capture his or her audience’s attention and persuade them.
Rankin, Paul. Hemmingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Explicator. 63.4 (Summer 2005): 234-237. Rpt. In Short Story Critisism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale, 234-237. Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. . 12 Jan. 2015.
November 1998, written for FILM 220: Aspects of Criticism. This is a 24-week course for second-year students, examining methods of critical analysis, interpretation and evaluation. The final assignment was simply to write a 1000-word critical essay on a film seen in class during the final six-weeks of the course. Students were expected to draw on concepts they had studied over the length of the course.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild, and Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man all tell the stories of a real-life character that makes the decision to venture out into the wilderness on his own. On one hand, Chris McCandless (Into The Wild), Timothy Treadwell (Grizzly Man), and Thoreau are similar in several ways. All three men record some kind of documentation about their journey; McCandless and Thoreau keep journals while Treadwell keeps a video log. Also, all three forced themselves to really live off the land using only the bare minimum of essentials. On the other hand, the men had several differences. In two of the stories, Into The Wild and Grizzly Man, the main character perishes as a result of his choice to live this way, while in Walden, Thoreau survives all the way through his experience. However, the most prominent differences between the characters were their reasons for venturing into the wild in the first place. Henry David Thoreau went into the woods “because [he] wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if [he] could learn what it had to teach, and not, when [he] came to die, discover that [he] had not lived” (Thoreau, Chapter II). His goal was to live his life simply yet richly in the wilderness. Chris McCandless went into the woods for a similar yet different reason. McCandless was opposed to living life the traditional way. He went into the wild to escape society and the traditional way of life. He wanted to prove to himself that he could survive out in the wild away from everything and everyone else. Finally, Timothy Treadwell makes his journey into the Alaskan wild for what he says is the protection of the bear population. His goal is to protect the bears fr...
In chapter six of her book Making the White Man 's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, Ange Aliess explores the topic of how Western have begun to change recently. The changes that she references in the film Dances With Wolves are also present in the film Winter in the Blood as well as in the 1491s shorts, even though the 1491s are a comedy group and not a Western genre. Aleiss describes the ways in which Native Americans reacted to Native portrayals in the film Dances With Wolves, and they tended to see the film’s better sides in contrast with critics. In Winter in the Blood, there are many stereotypes that are explored in ways that make the characters seem more real and less stereotypical as the backstories are revealed, despite
...he night before. While he thought things were not all good, we know from the noise that nothing wrong has happened. The morning that Frank dies, the light is ‘overcast, dim, so there was no sunlight flooding my room’ (p 154), all foreboding that Frank’s death will cover the truth. Wesley tells David that everybody pays for their crimes but ‘that doesn’t mean the sun’s going to shine’ (p156), indicating that justice is not always served. In ‘Montana 1948’, the author uses motifs to convey his ideas of truth and injustice and pushes the reader to consider the suffering of the Indians. The motifs intensify these themes and create an atmosphere to encourage the reader to accept the idea that Bentrock is unfair and unjust.
A cinematic experience offers a false projection of the world that people have the desire to indulge in. In Guy Vanderhaeghe’s novel, The Englishman’s Boy, the portrayal of the film as a whole is consistent with Chance’s vision to rewrite the story of the Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873 as a mythic history of the settling of the American west. Film has the power to access an aspect of reality somehow absent in other media. One could argue that film brainwashes people and alters reality when it is both projected and screened. Vanderhaeghe’s narrative oscillation and use of common literary techniques often foreshadow his film (Besieged) in many ways.
Connie Fife is a Saskatchewan, Cree poet who writes using her unique perspective, telling of her personal experiences and upbringing. This perspective is revealed to her audience through the poems “This is not a Metaphor”, “I Have Become so Many Mountains”, and “She Who Remembers” all of which present a direct relationship to her traditional background and culture (Rosen-Garten, Goldrick-Jones 1010). To show the relationship of her experiences through her poetry, Fife uses the form of dramatic monologue, as well as modern language and literal writing to display themes about racism presenting her traditional viewpoint to her audience.
“Why? Why? The girl gasped, as they lunged down the old deer trail. Behind them they could hear shots, and glass breaking as the men came to the bogged car” (Hood 414). It is at this precise moment Hood’s writing shows the granddaughter’s depletion of her naïve nature, becoming aware of the brutality of the world around her and that it will influence her future. Continuing, Hood doesn’t stop with the men destroying the car; Hood elucidated the plight of the two women; describing how the man shot a fish and continued shooting the fish until it sank, outlining the malicious nature of the pair and their disregard for life and how the granddaughter was the fish had it not been for the grandmother’s past influencing how she lived her life. In that moment, the granddaughter becomes aware of the burden she will bear and how it has influenced her life.
Carver progresses the narrator’s tone throughout the story, from disdainful to cautious to introspective by developing his relationship with Robert, and forcing them to interact with each other, to express that false presumptions about strangers, based on someone else’s experience or stories, can be misleading.
"The Bull Moose" by Alden Nowlan is a finely crafted poem which reminds us of how far man has strayed from Nature. Through a carefully constructed series of contrasted images, Nowlan laments, in true Romantic fashion, man's separation from Nature.
Into the Wild by John Krakauer is a rare book in which its author freely admits his bias within the first few pages. “I won't claim to be an impartial biographer,” states Krakauer in the author’s note, and indeed he is not. Although it is not revealed in the author's note whether Krakauer's bias will be positive or negative, it can be easily inferred. Krakauer's explanation of his obsession with McCandless's story makes it evident that Into the Wild was written to persuade the reader to view him as the author does; as remarkably intelligent, driven, and spirited. This differs greatly from the opinion many people hold that McCandless was a simply a foolhardy kid in way over his head. Some even go as far as saying that his recklessness was due to an apparent death-wish. Krakauer uses a combination of ethos, logos and pathos throughout his rendition of McCandless’s story to dispute these negative outlooks while also giving readers new to this enigmatic adventure a proper introduction.
... shadow of his narration suggests the significant influence of Joe’s bias on the manner in which the film is portrayed. The writer claims to represent the voice of empiricism, promising to deliver “the facts…(and) the whole truth” before the story gets “all distorted and blown out of proportion”, but his personality overlays the narration and his supposedly impartial retelling of the series of events contains opinions, editorials, and literary references all too reminiscent of a Hollywood drama. Joe Gillis, being a writer of fiction with an intense personal investment in the story he is telling, cannot be expected to adhere to scientific impartiality. Instead, he illustrates an essential tenet of storytelling and Hollywood mystique, the subjective nature of facts when coupled with human interpretation. Joe Gillis shows how a road can be more than a strip of asphalt.
This film captures this class distinction without subduing the atmosphere through the use of a variety of cinematic devices. “A good film is not a bag of cinematic devices but the embodiment, through devices, of a vision, an underlying theme” (Barnett, 274). The audience can see this theme of the realities of the oppression, poverty and despair of this time period through the use of the things mentioned, but also through the character development that is driven by the character’s hopelessness. Each of the characters associated with the lower class is motivated by the conditions, which are viewed through the cinematic devices mentioned above: color, spherical lenses, long shots, and high angle shots. Sources Cited:.
“Into The Wild” by John Krakauer is a non-fiction biographical novel which is based on the life of a young man, Christopher McCandless. Many readers view Christopher’s journey as an escape from his family and his old life. The setting of a book often has a significant impact on the story itself. The various settings in the book contribute to the main characters’ actions and to the theme as a whole. This can be proven by examining the impact the setting has on the theme of young manhood, the theme of survival and the theme of independent happiness.
Warfare and fire share a similar outcome related to death and destruction. Ernest Hemingway wrote “Big Two-Hearted River: Part 1”, with the protagonist Nick Adams on a hiking excursion along a tributary leading to Lake Superior. Once Nick comprehends that he is unable to forget his violent past in war, he must change his disposition on life and start a full body transformation similar to the nature around him. Even though devastation and death are prominent in “Big Two-Hearted River: Part 1”, Hemingway conveys a theme of hope and recovery from the suffering.