Mode shape

"Important themes are often expressed in key moments in texts." -Tal Adler The important theme of identity is expressed by the authors of my comparative texts through the use of their respective techniques with the effective use of key moments to heighten my awareness of its presence. During my comparative course, I have studied ‘The Spinning Heart’ by Donal Ryan (TSH), ‘A Doll’s House’, (ADH) a three-act play in prose by Henrik Ibsen, and ‘The King’s Speech’, (TKS) directed by Tom…

There are many things that Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King’s narrators have in common and many things that are different. There will be only one similarity and one difference between the narrators explained in this essay. The narrators of The Black Cat and The Man in the Black Suit have similar points of view, however Poe’s difference of reliability results in the audience questioning the story. The role of narrator is used in the same point of view, first person, in both The Black Cat and…

In the novel “Fahrenheit 451”, Montag is influenced by the characters. The characters of part 1 (Clarisse and undefined women) starts to change Montag. After he change in part 1, Montag is still influenced by the characters in part 2 and 3. Also Montag’s character change connects to the theme of humanity. The society of the novel impacts Montag gradually; he is dragged everywhere until he makes his own decision. In part 1 of the novel, characters including Clarisse and the women who…

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion is a novel that seems to centralize the majority of its language on a single main character. Due to the fact that we are only able to see into the mind of the main character, Maria, it can be argued that this novel only essentially has one character with the rest are just simply filling space. This begs the question, would William Gass argue that Maria is simply a linguistic location in Didion's novel? After all, "a character for [Gass] is any linguistic…

Within her first marriage, Janie’s view takes shape through the details of being forced to cook and expected to work as hard as a man while simultaneously receiving no affection in the relationship. These specific details of hard labor and the absence of love reveal her unhappiness, yet they contrast…

From a narratological point of view, a text may have certain stylistic indications of unreliable narration. According to Nünning, some of the most evident stylistic clues to narrative unreliability are “frequent occurrences of speaker-oriented and addressee-oriented expressions” (97). A narrator’s reliability is doubted if he/she is an obvious monologist, talking mostly about him/herself and ignoring the views of other characters. Stylistically, then, Tambu’s narrative reliability is challenged.…

Revealing the Leopard is a documentary on the life of Leopards. This documentary was directed by Mark Fletcher. It was released in November 2010 .Revealing the Leopard focuses on a single mother and her two cubs. Throughout the documentary we are able to see how they survive in the wild, with considerably larger predators. Revealing the Leopard, like most documentaries, uses certain techniques to engage with the audience and create an appealing story. Techniques such as, a narrator with a…

Have you ever read a book that you can relate to? For example when you're reading at home or at school and get hooked on it so quickly because of how much you can relate to it. Well there are many ways literature and life are connected. Some examples are characterization, conflict, and narration because the way we handle our conflicts is how we characterized and how people would narrate our lives just how an author would with a character in a book. Gillham indirectly characterizes Hank in many…

“ I neither expect nor solicit belief” the opening statement of an “Unreliable Narrator” a term, used to describe a narrator whose recollection of a tale is suspect – whether through willful deceit, immature naivete, or mental instability. The Unreliable Narrator forces the reader to question the validity, rather than the who, or what. In the short story “The Black Cat” the Narrator is what many would consider him a alcoholic sociopath. The Narrator exhibits personality traits such as; rage and…

In A Modest Proposal, the narrator of the essay is Jonathan Swift, Swift speaks in first person point of view. In Angela’s Ashes, the narrator of the autobiography is Frank McCourt, McCourt speaks in first person point of view also. Swift talks about Ireland’s internal problems in a political perspective, while McCourt talks about Limerick, Ireland, in a young, naive boy’s perspective. In contrast, the two different narrators comprehend certain situations differently from one another because of…