“Good Will” by Smiley and “Train Dreams” by Dennis Johnson are two adventure packed novellas, each unique in the way the authors tell the story. “Good Will” is a story about the Miller family and their life on their self-sufficient farm. Robert, Elizabeth, and Tommy all do their part to make sure the farm is running in tip-top shape. “Train Dreams” is the adventure of Robert Grainier and his life in the tough northwest. Smiley and Johnson wrote their novellas using two distinct writing techniques to engage and hook the reader; beginning the novella with an attention-getter and using writing perspective to emphasize with the characters in the story. It’s important for a writer to gain the reader’s attention in the first chapters in a story …show more content…
Johnson uses third person omniscient to create important view points from different characters. He is in the minds of all of the characters. This also helps the novella flow from one person perspective to the next, and the reader can move through the novella from one time period to the next quickly. This is important to the story because Johnson uses many plot lines to navigate through his novella, and his writing strategy helps develop irony throughout the story. After Grainier describes the Hobo, “He was bearded and streaked with dust, and bits of the woods clung to him everywhere,” (30) the reader engages the story through the eyes of William Coswell, the hobo along the river: “That’s right, I have been cut behind my knee and I have to say, I know he killed me” (31). The reader is engaged by Grainier’s description of William Coswell, but the reader also learns how the Hobo got in his predicament without the single view of Grainier. Grainier never told anyone about the Hobo along the river. This was the cruel irony Grainier thought the Hobo deserved. Johnson writing perspective also helps the reader empathize with Peterson when he was talking with Grainier about how his own dog shot him. After Grainier asked Peterson multiple times how a dog could shoot a person, Peterson tell his story. “My dog shot me in self-defense. He knew I had his end in mind.” By writing in third person omniscient the
The most important thing any writer can do is to give their characters a feel of
A good story is one that isn't demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn't remind us of the bad times, the cardboard patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all. (85)
“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” These are three demands for the writing of fiction. By following these demands, an author sparks interest in his/her work. “Make them wait” is a signifigant in creating the interest in the novels The Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies. This essay will explain how making the reader wait creates interest in the two novels stated earlier.
Sula begins with serious questions within the mind of a reader. Many motifs in the book challenge social structure, and what it means to be human. Pride is apparent within the plot, because dramatic characters have pride, or belief in who they are. Characters are meant to be dramatized to provoke audience emotion. The characters may change throughout a play, but they will be prideful in their change. Toni Morrison puts the reader into the eyes of a character, allowing the reader to become the character. This then leads to the realization of the questions, Is it good or bad to be prideful, and does the characters pride create a bond between the audiences? Sula brings about many occurrences of pride either being good, or pride being bad. Two examples are Eva Peace's decision to kill Plum, and Sula's return to the bottom. Before the occurrences are determined as good or bad, there must first be a definition of what constitutes something as being good, or bad. Kraut and Richard wrote of the ethnic and moral virtue, "First, I believe that there are these two relationships: being good for someone and being bad for someone; furthermore, some things are related in these ways; and in favorable circumstances, we can know that these relationships hold" (pg.31). The philosophers stated there are things in the world that are considered good, or bad. Relationships will hold true due to the experiences of defining something as good or bad. Before an occurrence can be established as good, or bad, it must first be compared. "To call someone a good chess player is to compare her with other chess players; it is to say she is good-in-relation-to-them" (Kraut,Richard pg. 32). The comparison allows an occurrence to form relation to other occurrences. ...
No matter where one grows up, they will always strive for their parent’s approval. The location, the time, or their age will not determine if they would love for their parents to approve of them. The problem usually uproots because the parents grow up in a different generation than their kids. Some parents want their kids to do better than them, or grow up as they did. In Hosseini’s Kite Runner and in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, express the problem that children have getting their parent’s approval very well.
Maggie and Jimmie, siblings whom Cranes uses as protagonists, live in deplorable and violent conditions. The setting is America West, during the industrialization era. The change from agricultural to industrial economy led to many casualties, including Maggie and Jimmie’s parents. They found themselves in periphery of economic edifice where poverty was rampant. Now alcoholics, they are incapable of offering parental care and support to their children. This leaves the children at the mercies of a violent, vain, and despondent society that shapes them to what they became in the end. Cranes’ ability to create and sustain characters that readers can empathize with is epic though critics like Eichhorst have lambasted his episodic style (23). This paper will demonstrate that in spite of its inadequacy, Cranes Novella caricatures American naturalism in a way hitherto unseen by illustrating the profound effect of social circumstances on his characters.
Chapter 1 is full of questions and strange issues, not only does this make the reader wants to read on to find out the answers but builds up the tension.
Ambrose Bierce chose to write this story in third person limited omniscient point of view to help the reader understand the story from the main character’s mind, Peyton Farquar. During the story you only see what happens through Peyton’s eyes. Therefore, you do not realize that most of the narrative reflects Peyton’s imagination. Choosing this type of view also lets the author focus more on the emotions and thoughts of the main character. The author does not let the reader see into the eyes of the men hanging him, but after reading the story one will understand that their point of view was not needed and would have actually taken away from the story if done so. His creative way of inventing this story would not have affected me and many other readers if written any other way.
During the first few chapters, the reader begins to examine the plot, absorb the characters lives and take in the setting. One would never guess what terrible tragic events would occur as each page is turned and more information is gathered. As the reader continues, each page dramatically changes the plot. Othello and Gatsby both commence as outsiders, unaware of their surroundings. Disorder initiates when other characters begin to take action, influencing madness, eventually leading to the climax, where everything turns into turmoil. In the end, consequence leads to every character’s boundless downfall.
Overall, by using third person omniscient, Dick develops the novel so that the reader only knows what Ragle, the protagonist, knows. He uses organized narrative structure and strong characterization to demonstrate the power that the government has and how far they are willing to extend that power. One of numerous purposes of the novel is to show how corrupt the government can be and how far they are willing to attack civil liberties in order to protect the nation as a whole.
The symbolism in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” truly represents Flanner O’Connor’s writing style and underlying theme. O’Connor exhibits the theme of religion in many of her works as she has written a majority of her stories “in the depth[s] of her Christian faith” (419). Having a strong Catholic background, O’Connor displays aspects of religious symbolism combined with her fascination of “grotesque incidents and characters” (420). In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor embodies the theme of religious symbolism through the setting as well as the main characters of her work, the Grandmother and The Misfit, as a glimpse of hope in a gruesome, sinister story.
Third-Person Limited Omniscient means that the narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of one character in the story. The author is still the narrator.
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.
We live in an imperfect world where things can inevitably go wrong although our actions meant well. Ethical actions should not be judged by a good outcome rather by a good will. Ethics are principles of right and wrong that guide a body of professionals on how to conduct their duties. In this paper good will is explained as an act of kindness towards oneself. This essay will explore the deontological moral theory by Kant in relation to utilitarianism by Mill.
scenes to the story which is crucial, since all his readers already know the general idea