I’ll be completely honest, wasn’t very inventive when I tried to find a story for this paper. My search for a story consisted of googling “top literary magazines” and scrolling through until I found something that kept my attention and left me with something to say in response. Eventually I landed on Carve Magazine, which was founded online in 2000 by Melvin Sterne. Later the current editor, Matthew Limpede, took over and expanded the magazine to include a print edition as well. The great thing about Carve is it attempts to be “honest fiction” in the sense that it publishes authors young and old, unpublished and established, by a submission and review process that is run primarily by other writers. They look for fiction that is both concise …show more content…
Bendida never seems quite right throughout the story. She’s described as very childish, both in appearance and mentality, but she has several lifetimes’ worth of experiences that she can’t enjoy or appreciate. When Jessie’s uncle Len fills her casket with volcanic rock, he is struck by the symbolism of it all. “Len said that they volcanic pieces were perfect for Benny, because they were hollow like the bones of a bird” (Celt, 4). Benny is beautiful, but flighty. She lives a perfectly constructed life, but it’s hollow. None of it matters because she doesn’t have the brain capacity to appreciate it. She has no concept of time. There is no need for her to cherish this moment because a) she’ll be able to recreate it forever b) there won’t be hard times ahead. Benny also doesn’t have adult wants, although she somehow recognizes that they’re important. She’s a porcelain shell of a human damned to live forever on the …show more content…
She was the character we wanted to grow up and cast Benny aside with other childish memories. But she doesn’t grow up, not really. She gets a medical degree and buys a house, but she doesn’t grasp her moment in Benny’s infinity. Jessie wants to hold onto Benny no matter what it costs her, but she never stops to think about what it would cost Benny if she were to hold on too tightly. Jessie’s mother does, though: “…we’re going to die, Jessie. At some point we’re all going to die, and then what would she do?” (Celt, 6). She’s trying to get Jessie to realize that moving Benny around isn’t just good for her caretakers; it’s good for Benny too. If someone were to selfishly prevent her from moving on, then it would only hurt her in the long run. Jessie will die, and Benny will continue on living and will probably be place in an orphanage after her
Devin Friedman is a creative storyteller who incorporates observant details in his writings, which makes the readers feel like as if they are part of the adventure. Devin attended the University of Michigan, and he was awarded as the winner of the Hopwood Contest. This contest was hosted by the university committee who appoints experienced judges and the Ann Arbor community to select winners in different writing divisions. In his recent years, Devin wrote for numerous publications such as The Best American Crime Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Esquire, People's Stories, and GQ. Out of the many articles Friedman has written in the past, “The Best Night $500,000 Can Buy,” “Famous People: James Franco,” and “The Unbearable Awkwardness of Being” are the ones I have chosen to read because of the interesting subject matters and the different writing styles.
On December 10, 1950, in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century, William Faulkner, presented his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. If one reads in between the lines of this acceptance speech, they can detect a certain message – more of a cry or plead – aimed directly to adolescent authors and writers, and that message is to be the voice of your own generation; write about things with true importance. This also means that authors should include heart, soul, spirit, and raw, truthful emotion into their writing. “Love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice” (Faulkner) should all be frequently embraced – it is the duty of authors to do so. If these young and adolescent authors ignore this message and duty, the already endangered state of literature will continue to diminish until its unfortunate extinction.
The novel is organized in an unusual manner that can make it seem unclear to the reader. Krakauer does not introduce the work as a whole, yet he pieces together the story through different chapters. McCandless’s journey is described out of chronological order, requiring the audience to pay careful attention in order to understand the events that unfold.
“Short Stories." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena Krstovic. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2010. 125-388. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. VALE - Mercer County Community College. 28 February 2014
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
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.
... age of Gene Forrester. Because Finny causes Gene to grow up, we are able to realize that one must grow up to move on in life. In that process of growing up, several people impact your life. This novel shows us how our identity is basically created by those who are present in our lives; however we must not measure our abilities against another person (Overview: A Separate Peace 2). We are shown how the impact of one person can make a great difference. The goodness in people is what one should always take away from a relationship. This is shown in the relationship between Gene and Finny. The experiences Finny gives Gene cause him to grow up and become a better person because of them.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
...it up to each reader to draw their own conclusions and search their own feelings. At the false climax, the reader was surprised to learn that the quite, well-liked, polite, little convent girl was colored. Now the reader had to evaluate how the forces within their society might have driven such an innocent to commit suicide.
Charters, A. (2011). The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (8th ed.). Boston: Bedfor/St. Martin's.
...le contradicts the pleasant ambience of the town. When the foreshadowing job reaches its goal, it leads to the climatic point of the story. Through this climax, the reader sees the cruelty of the residents and how they undervalue life for this particular ritual.
In this book review I represent and analyze the three themes I found the most significant in the novel.
Magill, Frank N., ed. Critical Survey of Short Fiction. Revised ed. Vol. 2. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1993. 7 vols.
'For a text to be appealing, the audience must see the protagonist in conflict.'(respond critically by making close analysis with the text.) To be completed by the first week of the holidays.
In the mid 1800’s America was in full swing of the romanticism movement. During this time readers were entertained by the fresh new writing styles of the latest authors. There were several famous authors in this era such as: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant. One innovative author from this movement however, added a new dynamic writing style that still intrigues many readers today. Edgar Allen Poe, through his invention of detective stories, has become a house hold name to many. In his short stories “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” Poe describes two heinous crimes committed by men whose motives can only be traced back to their deranged perception of reality, domestic relationships, and a soul whose thirst can only be quenched through violence.