Every form of literature has a meaning; some are hidden, others are straight forward and in plain sight. Literature can be sad, happy, dark, funny, complicated, and heart touching. However each piece of literature is distinctive and special in its own way. When starting to learn and study literature, reading takes on a new and different aspect. The study of literature requires critical thinking ability, recognizing different styles and forms, identifying the point of view, memorizing literary terms and looking beyond the obvious for meaning. I will explore two basic themes from the literary works “Kindred” by Octavia Butler and “The Encyclopedia of Early Earth” by Isabel Greenberg and these themes are the theme of history and the theme of storytelling.
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The writer writes in a simple, straight forward style with simple vocabulary. She writes the story as if she is Dana experiencing all of this agony and hardship. The narrator who happens to be Dana Franklin tells the story of her experiences with slavery and time travel into the antebellum south to the reader through flashbacks. She uses flashbacks to help the reader relieve along with Dana all the pain and horrors of slavery. This makes the world of 1819 more realistic than it might be in a simple historical novel. Octavia Butler divides the plot into chapters that rally with the times when Dana is needed by Rufus. They include The River, The Fire, The Fall, The Fight, The Storm and The Rope. There is also a prologue which sets the stage for the flashbacks to follow and an Epilogue when Dana and Kevin fly back to Baltimore to try to find proof of the existence of all the people on the Weylin plantation. There are several other literary devices that come up at different times in the story. One of the re-occurring ones id foreshadowing which frequently presents clues of something that was going to happen later in the novel. An example will be when the novel opens with the prologue which reveals that on her last trip home, she lost her arm as well as about a year of her life. This prepares the reader for the hardship that is to come later on. The novel also makes use of
The writer writes in a simple, straight forward style with simple vocabulary. She writes the story as if she is Dana experiencing all of this agony and hardship. The narrator who happens to be Dana Franklin tells the story of her experiences with slavery and time travel into the antebellum south to the reader through flashbacks. She uses flashbacks to help the reader relieve along with Dana all the pain and horrors of slavery. This makes the world of 1819 more realistic than it might be in a simple historical novel. Octavia Butler divides the plot into chapters that rally with the times when Dana is needed by Rufus. They include The River, The Fire, The Fall, The Fight, The Storm and The Rope. There is also a prologue which sets the stage for the flashbacks to follow and an Epilogue when Dana and Kevin fly back to Baltimore to try to find proof of the existence of all the people on the Weylin plantation. There are several other literary devices that come up at different times in the story. One of the re-occurring ones id foreshadowing which frequently presents clues of something that was going to happen later in the novel. An example will be when the novel opens with the prologue which reveals that on her last trip home, she lost her arm as well as about a year of her life. This prepares the reader for the hardship that is to come later on. The novel also makes use of