Sympathy For Mr. Newman Chapter Summary

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Recommended: Impact of realism to literature

J.F. Powers displays a situation which convicts sympathy in readers for the main character, Mr. Newman, without becoming sentimental himself. Powers’ depressive social reality constructs a small but potent sadness in readers by sharing Mr. Newman’s unwanted experience and his thoughts about what is happening to him. Powers never directly analyzes Mr. Newman’s thoughts, but states them simply and accompanies them with adjectives that create a small, grey puff of sadness around them in readers’ minds. This puff expands into a larger cloud as the story continues and readers develop a greater empathy for Mr. Newman, and it ends in a full blown rain storm when we are let down by the ending, in which we know that Mr. Newman will not be able to keep

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