“A Thousand Splendid Suns recounts the experiences and emotions of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives become entangled with the history of recent wars in their country. Mostly bleak and heartrending, their story does offer the promise of hope and happiness in a land ravaged by warfare, gender conflicts, and poverty.
Showing posts with label Literary Analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literary Analysis. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Literary Analysis #4
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid clichés.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
4. Describe five literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the theme and/or your sense of the tone. Include three excerpts that will help your reader understand each one.
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
1. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan contains many stories about Chinese immigrant mothers and their children who are born and raised in America. One of the main characters, Jing-mei Woo, took her mother’s place playing mahjong which was in San Francisco. The club members of this Joy Luck Club all share their stories and pass them on to their American children.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid clichés.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
4. Describe five literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the theme and/or your sense of the tone. Include three excerpts that will help your reader understand each one.
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
1. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan contains many stories about Chinese immigrant mothers and their children who are born and raised in America. One of the main characters, Jing-mei Woo, took her mother’s place playing mahjong which was in San Francisco. The club members of this Joy Luck Club all share their stories and pass them on to their American children.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Literature Analysis #3
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
1. Dorian Gray is a well cultured and a very handsome young man living in London, England. The commoners and the wealthy are intrigued with his beauty and perfect appearance—he can attract males as well. An artist named Basil Hallward [Basil is homosexual like Oscar Wilde, the author (he incorporated himself in the novel]) finds Dorian Gray as a perfect subject for a new painting and paints him. After the painting of the perfect Dorian Gray was finished, the painted was handed down to its rightful master. As time passes, Dorian’s internal ugliness begins to show in the portrait while his actual self never ages and remains flawless. Needless to say Dorian is a very arrogant and narcissist towards himself and when a girl whom she loved broke her heart and committed suicide, Dorian still lead a life of a steel heart. When she died, the portrait contained a scratch. At the end of the novel when Dorian is a disgusting person at heart, the portrait turns into a repulsive man and he calls up the artist, Basil, and asks what he has done to the painting. Basil told him he has never touched the painting but Dorian can’t accept it. Instead he stabs him with a knife and kills him. Worried, Dorian black mails a friend to dispose Basil Hallward’s body. After that event the portrait is at its most hideous point. Dorian Gray is furious and stabs the portrait at the heart. Soon, the maids in the mansion hear a loud shriek of a man. They curiously enter Dorian’s room and find a gorgeous and spotless painting of a handsome young man and on the floor is an old man with a knife in his heart.
1. Dorian Gray is a well cultured and a very handsome young man living in London, England. The commoners and the wealthy are intrigued with his beauty and perfect appearance—he can attract males as well. An artist named Basil Hallward [Basil is homosexual like Oscar Wilde, the author (he incorporated himself in the novel]) finds Dorian Gray as a perfect subject for a new painting and paints him. After the painting of the perfect Dorian Gray was finished, the painted was handed down to its rightful master. As time passes, Dorian’s internal ugliness begins to show in the portrait while his actual self never ages and remains flawless. Needless to say Dorian is a very arrogant and narcissist towards himself and when a girl whom she loved broke her heart and committed suicide, Dorian still lead a life of a steel heart. When she died, the portrait contained a scratch. At the end of the novel when Dorian is a disgusting person at heart, the portrait turns into a repulsive man and he calls up the artist, Basil, and asks what he has done to the painting. Basil told him he has never touched the painting but Dorian can’t accept it. Instead he stabs him with a knife and kills him. Worried, Dorian black mails a friend to dispose Basil Hallward’s body. After that event the portrait is at its most hideous point. Dorian Gray is furious and stabs the portrait at the heart. Soon, the maids in the mansion hear a loud shriek of a man. They curiously enter Dorian’s room and find a gorgeous and spotless painting of a handsome young man and on the floor is an old man with a knife in his heart.
2. Internal ugliness will show. This is the simplest theme I could come up with in the novel. Dorian Gray was handsome and attractive but his heart was disgusting and horrifying. The painting that Basil painted was a symbol of this heart. I believe that is why when Dorian stabbed the painting, it actually stabbed his heart.
3. Oscar Wilde’s tone was very calm but mystifying. His use of syntax and diction made the novel much more compelling and dramatic. [Some of the things he says are quite philosophical.]
‘Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with a palid face and tear-stained eyes looked at him, as he walked over to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window.’
‘All art is quite useless.’
‘Life always has poppies in her hands.’
4. Oscar Wilde has to be one the best authors that use imagery—it is amazing how a simple few words can turn a mind full of vibrant images. Again, syntax and diction added to the richness of the novel. Reading his imagery passages was like taking a decadent bite of rich chocolate—the more we taste, the more sensation and thoughts we get. Sounds funny, but it was like this while reading.
‘The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amid the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.’
‘The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive.’
‘Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a little flower-like face, a small Greek head of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. .. Pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.’
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Literature Analysis #2
Our Town by Thorton Wilder
1. Our Town by Thorton Wilder is a three act play that consists of many characters and shares a part of their daily lives. The play is narrated by the Stage Manager who welcomes the audience to the fictional town of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire in 1901. The story/ play are about the Webb and Gibbs family (their last names are so similar that I get them confused sometimes!). Anyway, George Gibbs and Emily Webb have affection for each other and they get married near the beginning of the play. Act I is basically an introduction—an exposition in other words but the story picks up its pace in the Act II. Act II takes place three years later on George’s and Emily’s wedding day. George was very excited to see his bride-to-be but Mr. and Mrs. Webb cues him to leave because they believe that a groom should not see his bride unless he wants bad luck. After Mrs. Webb leaves the conversation, Mr. Webb and George has a very deep conversation about marriage and discusses how to be a virtuous husband. George is feeling a bit awkward and an outcast when they talk together. In Act III, Emily dies of childbirth and the scene opens up with a cemetery scene on a hilltop overlooking the town. Mrs. Soames, Wally Webb, Simon Stimson and Mrs. Gibbs already left the Earth at this time and the dead speaks. Unfortunately, Emily misses her life and decides to go back. She realizes at the end of the story that she should appreciate every part of life and not regret anything.
2. The theme wasn’t expressed very clearly (well, intentions of many authors…). However, I believe that Wilder wanted to convey to the audiences that time a-wasting and we can’t let our busy lives ignore time. Emily’s family and George’s family were always very rushed and busy; the mother and father and daughters were so busy in the mornings that they wouldn’t even talk to each other. Some busily headed to school while the others hurried to work. Mr. Gibbs- also known as Dr. Frank Gibbs is a surgeon and is predictably busy with his life. Anyway, when Emily dies, she realizes how important to cherish every part of the daily life because eventually, everyone will lose it all.
3. The author’s tone was very calm and reserved. Even though there were certain rush hours in the play, things still seemed very realistic and a slice of OUR lives itself. For example, from Act II; ‘they brought up two children apiece, washed and cleaned the house, -- and never a nervous breakdown.
4. Diction, syntax, mood, imagery, motifs. Those five literary elements stood out the most while reading the play. Diction and syntax might go together because both are very similar but have a distinct difference. Wilder’s word usage is a bit banal but nevertheless it is quite easy for the audience to understand. Because it is a play, some parts can be confusing (like Hamlet) but the Stage Manager seemed to take care of it well. Anyway, the introduction sets the mood for the exposition; a childbirth. This clearly signifies “new” and “exciting life” which Wilder successfully conveys through tone and mood. Imagery wasn’t a very large part of the play however some scenes were very clear in our minds like how the play was set up. An example of this would be the opening of Act III when it introduces a cemetery on a hill top. Not only is this an example of imagery but these accounts for both tone and mood.
Stage directions: ‘The dead do not turn their heads or eyes to right or left, but they sit in a quiet without stiffness. When they speak their tone is matter-of-fact, with sentimentality and, above all, without lugubriousness.’
‘We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the starts…everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something and to do with human beings.’
Stage directions: the stage at no time in this act has been very dark; but now the left half of the stage gradually becomes very bright – the brightness of a crisp winter morning. EMILY walks towards Main Street.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Lit Analysis
Umibe no Kafka (Kafka on the Shore) by Haruki Murakami
1. A fifteen year old boy named Kafka Tamura is on a runaway from home seeking his lost mother and older sister. As Kafka meets many new people in Shikoku, Japan, he starts unveiling mysteries about his father's death and his mother and sister's whereabouts. A concurring story is about a senior citizen, Nakata, who has the ability to communicate with cats and who is not very bright. When the story continues at a mystifying pace, these two protagonists get closer for a fateful encounter.
2. Stupid as this may sound, I do not, or cannot come up for a major theme for Kafka on the Shore. Sure, I understand the plot and the characters' actions, however I cannot decipher/ figure out the theme for this odd book. Perhaps "life is a journey" is a typical cliche for themes. A book filled with magical realism and glimpses of reality is surely perplexing.
3. The author's tone is puzzling and mystique (just like the story itself). Some parts of the book is genuine genius, for example, his quotes and personal reflection. Sometimes I wonder if this book is some sort of philosophy.
'With a jolt of panic I remember my backpack. Where could I have left it? No way I can lose it -- everything I own's inside. But how am I going to find it in the dark?...'
'Sometimes fate is like s small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You can change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again but the storm adjusts."
'Over and over you play this out, like some omnious dance with death before dawn. Why? ... Something inside of you. .. There's not sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time.'
4. Through syntax, diction, mood, <countless> metaphors and similes, I sensed a bit what the theme is, although I'm clueless right now.
"No matter how metaphysical of symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too."
' "You got your restrooms and your food. Your fluorescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee. Strawberry jam sandwiches. It's all pointless-- assuming you to find a point. We're coming from somewhere heading somewhere else." '
'It wasn't even a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn't even a correlation. Until Edison invented the elcetric light, most of the world was toally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked.'
1. A fifteen year old boy named Kafka Tamura is on a runaway from home seeking his lost mother and older sister. As Kafka meets many new people in Shikoku, Japan, he starts unveiling mysteries about his father's death and his mother and sister's whereabouts. A concurring story is about a senior citizen, Nakata, who has the ability to communicate with cats and who is not very bright. When the story continues at a mystifying pace, these two protagonists get closer for a fateful encounter.
2. Stupid as this may sound, I do not, or cannot come up for a major theme for Kafka on the Shore. Sure, I understand the plot and the characters' actions, however I cannot decipher/ figure out the theme for this odd book. Perhaps "life is a journey" is a typical cliche for themes. A book filled with magical realism and glimpses of reality is surely perplexing.
3. The author's tone is puzzling and mystique (just like the story itself). Some parts of the book is genuine genius, for example, his quotes and personal reflection. Sometimes I wonder if this book is some sort of philosophy.
'With a jolt of panic I remember my backpack. Where could I have left it? No way I can lose it -- everything I own's inside. But how am I going to find it in the dark?...'
'Sometimes fate is like s small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You can change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again but the storm adjusts."
'Over and over you play this out, like some omnious dance with death before dawn. Why? ... Something inside of you. .. There's not sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time.'
4. Through syntax, diction, mood, <countless> metaphors and similes, I sensed a bit what the theme is, although I'm clueless right now.
"No matter how metaphysical of symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too."
' "You got your restrooms and your food. Your fluorescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee. Strawberry jam sandwiches. It's all pointless-- assuming you to find a point. We're coming from somewhere heading somewhere else." '
'It wasn't even a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn't even a correlation. Until Edison invented the elcetric light, most of the world was toally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked.'
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