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The way characters are portrayed in literature is one of the most important aspects of literature. Characters that do not reflect well with their audiences do not usually do well, but audiences change over time so literature has to change with them. The Maltese Falcon, written by Dashiell Hammett, was published in 1929. Being a crime, noir novel it portrayed what became to be known as the stereotypical no-nonsense detective and femme fatale. These types of characters are still popular in modern day fiction, but have changed to fit the audience’s different perspectives. In this paper the characters of The Maltese Falcon and the characters of Alan Moore’s 1986 graphic novel Watchmen will be examined to see how audiences views of similar characters evolves over time. Watchmen, while originally published as a limited series comic book, is a highly regarded graphic novel that has been praised for its plot, characters, and political statements. While the two works may not seem to be similar they have much more in common than meets the eye. For example, both works are based around a crime in …show more content…
In The Maltese Falcon Sam Spade is what most people think of when they hear about a private detective. He is a no nonsense, tough guy that is not only a good detective, but can defend himself as well. While Sam may not be the most ideal protagonist as his moral compass is not exactly the best he is what a typical protagonist for this type of crime fiction. Meanwhile in Watchmen the character of Walter Kovacs, also known as Rorschach, is also a private detective type of character, but with vigilante elements. The things that really separate the two characters is that Rorschach is practically insane. While Rorschach also has a poor moral compass he is willing to go beyond certain measures that would be viewed negatively if a character like Sam Spade were to perform
In our contemporary civilization, it is evident that different people have somewhat different personalities and that novels behold essential and key roles in our daily lives; they shape and influence our world in numerous ways via the themes and messages expressed by the authors. It is so, due to the different likes of our population, that we find numerous types and genres of books on our bookshelves, each possessing its own audience of readers and fans. In this compare and contrast essay, we will be analysing and comparing two novels, The Chrysalids and Animal Farm, and demonstrating how both books target the general audience and not one specific age group or audience of readers. We will be shedding light at the themes and messages conveyed to us in both books, the point of view and the style of writing of the authors as well as the plot and the format used by the authors, in order to demonstrate how both books are targeting the general audience.
In our contemporary civilization, literature plays an important and impacting role in our daily lives. Adapting to the different likes and tastes of modern day society, books and novels have different types and genres, all having in common the objective to please the reader and to convey morals and themes to the audience. In the 20th century were written 2 novels, The Chrysalids and Animal Farm, which will be compared and contrasted in the following essay, demonstrating the fact that they both target the general audience and not one particular group of readers. The comparison between both novels will be done via the contrast of specific literary elements such as the plot and the moods of the novels, the point of view of the narration and the style of the author, and also via the themes the authors try to convey to their audience through their literary work.
The Pacific coast port city of San Francisco, California provides a distinctively mysterious backdrop in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Unlike many other detective stories that are anchored in well-known metropolises such as Los Angeles or New York City, Hammett opted to place the events of his text in the lesser-known, yet similarly exotic cultural confines of San Francisco. Hammett used his own intricate knowledge of the San Francisco Bay Area - coupled with details collected during a stint as a detective for the now defunct Pinkerton Agency - to craft a distinctive brand of detective fiction that thrived on such an original setting (Paul 93). By examining the setting of 1920’s San Francisco in The Maltese Falcon, it becomes apparent that one of Hammett’s literary strengths was his exceptional ability to intertwine non-fictional places with a fictional plot and characters in order to produce a logical and exceedingly believable detective mystery.
the stories are being chased down and are wanted to be killed. Rainsford and Kane are both smart men who know how to outsmart others and stay
The mid-1800s contains its special genre of writing. Perhaps it was the wild American frontier or maybe a writer’s whim to write something different, yet nevertheless, American Romanticism evolved. Writers like James Fennimore Cooper filled their stories with heroes and villains, war and peace, love and strife throwing all sorts of trials towards their characters. Like puppets writers control their characters actions and emotion; Cooper’s characters are flat, predictable people with much happening to them. Two of his characters Hawkeye and Mague will be discussed to determine whether any internal change occurred.
It is understandable to think that Rorschach is the most influential character in Watchmen, however it is clearly The Comedian due to his incredible influence of all the characters and the fact that his death sets the main plot in motion. Though his heroic code is not as strong and stable as Rorschach’s, The Comedian understands the world perfectly, but “he doesn’t care” (Moore, 4.19). Both of these characters saw the “true face” of this reality, one just fought against it while the other became a parody of it.
Watchmen is not just a graphic novel, but also a unique representation of American idealism as expressed through character image. Although the characters are portrayed as "superheroes," each is psychologically complex in that they become symbols for the flaws of American culture. Together, the characters of Watchmen reflect an unflattering image of American identity. We sacrifice morals to defend principles, rather than saving people. We sacrifice ourselves for commercial gain and for the fame that comes from the worship of strangers.
To create living people should always be the goal in literature. It is how a writer can illuminate a new facet of existence and can only be achieved through the use of a sympathetic imagination. Hemingway erred however, when he argued, “A character is a caricature” (153). A caricature may be a character sometimes, but it may also be a fully realized and living person at others. As in Watchmen, when a caricature lives, it can be an extremely powerful thing.
Within the German Democratic Republic, there was a secret police force known as the Stasi, which was responsible for state surveillance, attempting to permeate every facet of life. Agents within and informants tied to the Stasi were both feared and hated, as there was no true semblance of privacy for most citizens. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the movie The Lives of Others follows one particular Stasi agent as he carries out his mission to spy on a well-known writer and his lover. As the film progresses, the audience is able to see the moral transformation of Stasi Captain Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler primarily through the director 's use of the script, colors and lighting, and music.
L’Engle, L'Engle. “Focus On The Story, Not Readers…” Writer Apr 2010: p. 24-25. MAS Ultra-School Edition. EBSCOhost. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Bonnie Crabb Humanities 340 Rough Draft Literary Criticism Can you imagine walking where the streets are dark and cold with no glimmer of excitement and joy as security cameras watch your every move? Alan Moore certainly could. In fact, he felt like he was living in such a place. He saw 1980s England as a fascist society where the lower class were being oppressed. In Moore’s graphic novel, V for Vendetta, he depicts that point in history through the story of future London under the Norsefire Regime.
Consequently, one can broach a series of querries about literature and the nature of literary theories : what is literature ? What is the novel and what is its function ? And finally, to what extent does criticism affect the quality of literature ? This welter of questions is nothing but the tip of the ice berg.
We have all seen movies or TV shows with spies in them but have you ever thought about the differences between fiction spies and nonfiction spies? If you think about it you will probably realize that they are very different in many ways. These are some ways that real spies and TV spies are different. The first way is capabilities second is bravery and third is what they drive.
The study of the adaptation process from novel to film in addition offers an insight into the nature of expression through words and through pictures, respectively.in what context do the seducing powers and the suggestiveness of the film unfolds? And when is one word capable of saying more than a thousand pictures? Another very good reason for novels-into-film studies is that such studies clearly stimulate the interest for literature, for reading and there are numerous examples of film adaptations causing a demand for the books they are based on. Frequently, old and little known novels experience a revival. Long forgotten novels have been reprinted, published in paper-back with pictures from the films on their covers and sold in newsstands along with magazines, papers and comic books. Even an author with a more limited accessibility, like Virginia Woolf, gained a considerably enlarged circle of readers after the adaptation of her own Mrs. Dalloway (1997) and of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours(2002).
...ch as time, dates, and the exact relationships between the different characters are is not spelled out. This active involvement of the viewer is necessary for the work of art to stand on its own. This takes the challenge thrown out by modernists to reject easy conventions and make new ones, and pushes it further to the point where conventions become a joke. Those who understand the references get the joke, and this creates a new kind of meaning beyond the surface meaning of the narrative.