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Biographies of William Shakespeare an essay
Biographies of William Shakespeare an essay
Biographies of William Shakespeare an essay
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By definition, a textual analysis shows the reader how and why an author has used certain techniques and strategies to present and develop an idea. In John Edgar Wideman’s Brothers and Keepers (1984) Wideman uses figurative language consistently in an attempt to convey tone, attitude, persona and imagery to the reader. Although this language isn’t always apparent at first glance, looking deeper into the reading will help the reader fully understand what the author really means. Figurative language is specific language that uses expressions differently from the literal interpretation; consequently, a thorough analysis of the text itself will allow one to form an interpretation between the composition and the true meaning of the excerpt. In the excerpt from his story, John Wideman uses this figurative language to explain his past and present, telling of his relationship with his brother Robert Wideman, who was sentenced to life in prison for murder. John’s tone and attitude give the reader a better understanding of his …show more content…
John feels guilty for leaving his brother behind, starting a new life, and putting distance between them. John’s “running away” (Wideman 47) can be compared to the river that Robert sees every day at prison, “a natural symbol of flight and freedom” (Wideman 46); consequently, John’s guilt stems directly from this imagery of separation. With this guilt and separation also comes fear. John knows how the distance between him and his brother has widened, and the why aspect can be associated with John’s fear “that evil would be discovered [in him]” and that “he would be shunned like a leper” (Wideman 47). Clearly John is afraid of the separation-the distance- between his brother, family, and past, knowing that he will never be as close to these things as he once was; they are only vague images to him
A deeply pious man, John considers the Bible a sublime source of moral code, guiding him through the challenges of his life. He proclaims to his kid son, for whom he has written this spiritual memoir, that the “Body of Christ, broken for you. Blood of Christ, shed for you” (81). While John manages to stay strong in the faith and nurture a healthy relationship with his son, his relationship with his own father did not follow the same blueprint. John’s father, also named John Ames, was a preacher and had a powerful effect on John’s upbringing. When John was a child, Father was a man of faith. He executed his role of spiritual advisor and father to John for most of his upbringing, but a shift in perspective disrupted that short-lived harmony. Father was always a man who longed for equanimity and peace. This longing was displayed in his dealings with his other son, Edward: the Prodigal son of their family unit, a man who fell away from faith while at school in Germany. John always felt that he “was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house” (238). Father always watched over John, examining for any sign of heterodoxy. He argued with John as if John were Edward, as if he were trying to get Edward back into the community. Eventually, John’s father's faith begins to falter. He reads the scholarly books
The story appears to be revolving around deviance. Deviance is defined as the violation of norms, whether the infraction is as grave as murder or as trivial as driving over the speed limit. However, what makes something deviant is not the act itself, but the reaction to the act. In this story, both Robby and John are deviants. John violated his society norms by doing something that is not expected of him. He became a scholar, married a white woman. This is not a bad thing in itself but the way John accomplished it is not good either. John pushed away his family and deliberately distanced himself from his Homewood community. This suggests that deviance is neutral in itself; it can be negative or positive. It is also relative, as it can be positive from one side and negative from the other. People often th...
At great personal costs to himself, John reveals Abigail’s true motivation of jealousy and desire. When he confesses to committing adultery,John knows numerous people have died or confessed to having been visited by Satan. However, the confession does not help anyone as John is being accused of
Charlotte Gilman s manipulation of language and syntax in her prose is crucial to the overall effect of the story. What the reader is presented is a story that uses language and syntax to portray a woman s changing mental state. The reader experiences the narrator s deteriorating mental state as she succumbs to her condition and eventually loses her sanity.
One of his intriguing skills as a writer is his ability to intertwine narration and analysis in his essays. James Baldwin mixes narration and analysis in his essays so well that coherence is never broken, and the subconscious is so tempted to agree with and relate to what he says, that if you don’t pay close attention, one will find himself agreeing with Baldwin, when he wasn’t even aware Baldwin was making a point. Physical placement of analytical arguments and analytical transitions, frequency and size of analytical arguments, and the language used within the analytical arguments are the keys to Baldwin’s graceful persuasion. Throughout this essay, I will be using Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” as an example. “Notes of a Native Son” is an essay that Baldwin wrote which focuses primarily on his life around the time his father died, which also happens to be the same time his youngest brother was born.
Although the narrator feels desperate, John tells her that there is “no reason” for how she feels, she must dismiss those “silly fantasies”(166). In other words, John treats her like a child and gives her reason to doubt herself. “Of course it is only nervousness”(162). She decides. She tries to rest, to do as she is told, like a child, but suffers because John does not believe that she is ill. This makes her feel inadequate and unsure of her own sanity.
Deep-seated in these practices is added universal investigative and enquiring of acquainted conflicts between philosophy and the art of speaking and/or effective writing. Most often we see the figurative and rhetorical elements of a text as purely complementary and marginal to the basic reasoning of its debate, closer exploration often exposes that metaphor and rhetoric play an important role in the readers understanding of a piece of literary art. Usually the figural and metaphorical foundations strongly back or it can destabilize the reasoning of the texts. Deconstruction however does not indicate that all works are meaningless, but rather that they are spilling over with numerous and sometimes contradictory meanings. Derrida, having his roots in philosophy brings up the question, “what is the meaning of the meaning?”
John’s indignity to his home connects to his homosexuality and religion with a need to be holy and pure.
10. What form of figurative language does the author use in lines 4 & 5 of page 215 to make his writing more
Authors use figurative language to express nuanced ideas, those that beggar literal description. Such language provides the author an opportunity to play with his reader’s imagination and sense. A piece of literature that uses figurative language is more intriguing and engaging than a writing that aims only to explain. Ralph Ellison’s use of figurative language in “The Battle Royal” paints a powerful and unique story of oppression and the struggle for self-discovery. His juxtaposition of literal and figural language gave the story a dream like quality, all while creating a profound and vivid image.
Wheeler, Kip. "Literary Terms and Definitions M." Literary Terms and Definitions "M" Carson-Newman University, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
Diction plays a critical role in the development of the tone in a story. The type of words the author uses directly leads to the tone of the entire literary work. If ...
...n his path to redemption. In order to save his life, he is tempted into admitting that he is indeed in league with the Devil. But if done he would be telling a terrible lie and is also blackening the names of all the other prisoners who've refused to give in. When John is asked to actually sign his name, he refuses. The act of putting his name to paper is just too much. By signing his name he would have signed away his soul. Though he would have saved his life, his goodness would've been forever out of his reach.
It is noteworthy to be stated clearly at the outset of the present paper that literary theories are composed of a mere plethora of highly debatable ideas, concepts and assumptions. They are in other words, strikingly vague, opaque and of a typical flexibility. According to Wellek and Warren (1966, p. 30) }there are then, not only one or two but literally hundreds of independent, diverse, and mutually exclusive conceptions of literature, each of which is in some way right~. That is, the diversity of literary theories and even the contradiction between them sometimes, is something natural.
Literary criticism is used as a guideline to help analyze, deconstruct, interpret, or even evaluate literary works. Each type of criticism offers its own methods that help the reader to delve deeper into the text, revealing all of its innermost features. New Criticism portrays how a work is unified, Reader-Response Criticism establishes how the reader reacts to a work, Deconstructive Criticism demonstrates how a work falls apart, Historical Criticism illustrates how the history of the author and the author’s time period influence a text, and last of all, Psychological Criticism expresses how unconscious motivations drive the author in the creation of their work as well as how the reader’s motivations influence their own interpretation of the text (Lynn 139, 191). This creates a deep level of understanding of literature that simply cannot be gained through surface level reading. If not one criticism is beneficial to the reader, then taking all criticisms or a mixture of specific criticisms into consideration might be the best way to approach literary