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The role of narrator
Literature review on identity
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Moses Herzog's Confused Identity
While Moses Herzog sits in the Chicago police station after he has crashed his rental car, the narrator of Saul Bellow's work exclaims angrily, "See Moses? We don't know one another" (299). This is the lone moment in the book where the narrator explicitly suggests some separation between himself and Herzog. Much of the rest of the novel provides an unclear division between the narrator and the main character. I would argue that this unclear division occurs because these two figures, the narrator and Herzog, are in fact the same person. There are small logistical hints in the text that this is true. But these small elements of the text exist alongside much larger similarities between Herzog, and the narrator. In the largest sense, the uncertainty, the subjectivity that the narrator evinces in telling Herzog's story shows just how similar he is to the character he is describing. In the end even the quote that began this paper, the remark that ostensibly creates the strongest division between the narrator and Herzog, is evidence that these two figures are really the same - that Herzog is really narrating his own story.
The most visible element of the book that suggests some conflation of the narrator and Herzog is the narrator's confused pronoun use for Herzog. On occasion, the narrator confusingly refers to Herzog not in the third person as "he" but instead in the first person as "I," seemingly adopting Herzog's voice. Some of the times that this happens, it seems a stylistic device, such as when the narration is given in Herzog's voice, directly after Herzog's letters. Herzog writes to Madeleine's mother Tennie, before thinking about what he has just written: "It's in the vault, in Pitts...
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...rose colored glasses. Similarly, Herzog having this emotional experience would not allow the narrator to empathize with, and thus understand Nachman. But it does. The narrator is, and would only be able to utilize Herzog's own emotional intelligence in narrating the story, because the narrator is Herzog.
The confused pronoun references throughout the text strongly suggest that the narrator and Herzog are one. But the less overt moments, where the reader is brought to see the emotional closeness of Herzog and the narrator, are the truly convincing signals that these two figures are one. Even the question that ostensibly sets the two figures apart, in fact contains many of the similarities between the two figures. When Moses tells himself, "See Moses? We don't know one another," Moses is, in fact, keeping with all the uncertainties that define him as a character.
The narrators of the story are the author Diana Alexander, and sometimes the characters, which narrates while dialogue. Alexander narrates the entire first paragraph, and her point of view in that piece is trusted, because she narrates the historical fact. The second paragraph though is from the point of view of the members of council, who is a character of the story and is also trusted. The member expressed his feelings, which should...
Unfortunately, Moshe’s stories went through on ear and out of the other for those who even listened. He went from one Jewish house to the next telling about his experience, “people not only refused to believe, his tales, they refused to listen. Others flatly said that he had gone mad” (7). Also in Night, Madame Sch...
The first time I noticed how the author’s voice affected the meaning of the text is when an author uses foreshadowing. This occurs in chapter 1 of Night, “Well, there you are, you see! What did we tell you? You wouldn’t believe us. There they are your Germans! What do you think of them? Where is their famous cruelty”(Wiesel 7)? This is a great example of how the meaning of the text is affected by author’s voice. The author is using rhetorical questions, questions that are asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply. He also uses foreshadowing (to show or indicate beforehand) in order to help give us an idea of the meaning of the text. The meaning of the text in the quote is to show how the optimists of Sighet believed that the Germans were good and how they rubbed it in the face of the people that thought the Germans were bad and sinister. It is also to give us a hint at what the future holds. Another example of how author’s voice affects the meaning of a text while using foreshadowing is in the first paragraph of “A S...
The tone of the novel is greatly influenced through the fact that the story is autobiographical. There seems to be only one agenda utilized by Elie Wiesel in regards to the tone of the story as he presents the information for the readers’ evaluation. The point of the story is to provide the reader an emotional link to the horror of the holocaust through the eyes of one whom experienced those horrors. Wiesel speaks with a distance that is often found in autobiographies. He presents the facts as to what he saw, thought, and felt during those long years in the camps. Wiesel, in essence, is now the same as Moshe the Beadle, one of the first Jewish deportees and the only one to return to the city to warn others. “He told his story and that of his companions," (page 4, 5th paragraph). Elie has become Moshe. He tells his story, not for himself for he has already experienced the horrors, but to make sure that people are aware of what has happened, and so that it never happens again.
During the Renaissance, a period where there was a burst of creativity in art and writing, Europeans were encouraged to endeavour on new adventures of curiosity. The Age of Exploration started in the 15th century and continued into the 17th century. The three main reasons that prompted Europeans to explore were god, glory, and gold. Europeans hoped to find new sources of gold and silver in unclaimed lands. The Muslims and Italians controlled the trade routes which linked the East and West. By controlling these trade routes they were able to charge high prices and make great profits. Thus, the Europeans wanted a new sea route to Asia to avoid losing profits and to gain wealth. Henry the Navigator was a Portuguese prince who was a supporter of
The vision of the mind is easily portrayed through the art of literature, painting a picture with the stroke of words. The natural inspiration that influences the creation of these works is derived from the life and the experiences of the creator. For some, these tales become stories and those stories become novels, but for one man it meant so much more. The works of Edgar Allan Poe became his life; he expressed every feeling and every moment of his existence through ink and paper. Poe involved his entire life in his writing, leaving no element of the story untouched by his trademark of a past. His work became so unique and unorthodox, yet it did not lack the attention it deserved. The American critic, Curtis Hidden Page, suggested that “the essence of his work is logic, logic entirely divorced from reality, and seeming to arise superior to reality” (Quinn 31). The foundation of Poe’s stories seems simple enough, but beneath the surface remains unanswered questions and undiscovered truths, which have yet to be uncovered. The people and experiences throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s lifetime have influenced various themes including: insanity, revenge, death, and guilt which can be distinguished through a collection of his works.
The Epilogue is as important as the Prologue. Here we learn that the narrator is ready to go out and search for his identity. However, now he seems to see himself as higher than others because of his experiences. He states that everyone has experienced the same thing he has, but on a "lower frequency." Is this conceit, or is he trying to relate to everyone? If it is conceit then I am less likely to trust the narrator and his point of view on all that happened to him. However, he speaks of his "social responsibility" so he seems to be a caring person, and it is because of this that I trust him.
In “Hooked on ‘Caramel-Colored Gold,” Melody Nelson claims “Despite the increased awareness of the benefits of good nutrition, we are a nation hooked on junk food, and many school administrators are taking advantage of the situation ” (par. 3). Nelson propose a ban on vending machines in schools because junk food is unhealthy for children, and they risk future health problems. I agree with Melody Nelson and believe that vending machines should be banned from school campuses, because they sell unhealthy food, they cause more money to schools for hiring extra custodians, and they are affecting children learning abilities.
The author uses the first person point of view of Elli. The book I Have Lives A Thousand Years was written in 1997 from a girl who lived almost all her life in the Holocaust. She was thirteen years old when the Nazis came and took the Jews from her house and her town and school and took them to camps. This choice impacted the book by showing that it wasn't just a bunch of facts about the Holocaust thrown together to make a book; it was actually someone's journal, and that someone actually had to go through that and they wrote in their journal every day or almost everyday what happened and how everyone reacted. The narrative voice of all books are very important to the understand of a book. But in a Holocaust book the narrative voice is very important because it tells you if it's someone's life story or just someone taking a bunch of facts that they found on the internet and put them all together to make it sound it good as a book and publish
The narrator has a knack for bringing up traumatic times in his life, but passing it off in an indifferent tone. He believes that
When read at face value, Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, is a portrayal of white, imperial, oppression of the African natives of the Congo. However, when we view the writing through the lenses of psychoanalysis and feminism, a story focused on one character, Marlow, emerges. Each theory presents a new way of interpreting and understanding the character development and imagery within the story. Psychoanalysis provides a look into the mind and dreamlike setting of Marlow. Feminism examines the binary gender roles of the characters, Marlow and Kurtz. Both theories examine how these two characters are in some way the same person.
Moses proves to be a good prophet in demonstrating this idea, whereas Saul demonstrates that he is unfit for such a status. Ultimately, Jonah’s position on the prophetic spectrum will be revealed through the comparison of these two prophets.
Fleg, Edmond, and Stephen Haden Guest. The Life of Moses. New York: E.P. Dutton &, 1928. Print.
...f Densher denied his relationship with Kate in front of Milly, then he would feel a moral obligation to break his ties with Kate to keep his denial truthful. He's trying to be both truthful and moral. However, he did not know that Milly was dying – and now feels resentful towards Kate for lying to him. But, earlier on, Densher blackmails Kate into having sex with him. Densher is in fact now harming both Kate and Milly. As mentioned previously, Densher continues to enjoy being a manipulator – an unwitting cog in the gear known as English society. He is a prisoner much like Milly is described as a prisoner. A prisoner of his own mortality, in unwilling submissiveness to the exploitative society he lives in – he is comparable to Lord Mark, in that neither of them are either heroes or villains, they are simply both intent on inheriting Milly's money after her death.
In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe writes of a sickly brother and sister that live in an old estate, and a narrator’s account of the Ushers’ final days. The story is scary on two different levels. The first and most obvious that is noticed just by reading on the surface is the creepy atmosphere of the house and death of the main characters. Poe makes this level of scariness very accessible by the diction and imagery that he uses. The second level of scariness is the psychological aspect of the story. The themes of isolation, madness, and fear become terrifying because they are able to transcend the story; they are real, and they could quite possibly affect us.