In John Gardner’s novel “Nickel Mountain” we are introduced to the main character Henry Soames. In the first chapter of the novel Henry is characterized by the author as a depressed dying man, and because of this he is faced with the conflict that he is afraid to die. Gardner characterizes Soames this way by using literary techniques such as setting, writing the chapter in limited 3rd person point of view, and description.
In “Nickel Mountain” Gardner uses setting as one way to characterize Henry Soames. In the opening line of the passage the author tells us that Soames’s heart was bad, his business was struggling, and he was close to a mental breakdown. After this opening line Gardner sets up the setting to match this description about …show more content…
One reason why I consider this chapter as good literature is because how the work’s detail and structure reveal deliberate and purposeful craftsmanship. The main point of this chapter was to develop Henry Soames as a depressed dying man. Throughout the chapter Gardner successfully developed literary techniques such as setting, writing in limited 3rd person point of view, and description. He did not put so much detail into developing these techniques throughout the chapter for the sake of it but did it because he wanted to characterize Henry Soames’s character in a particular way. Gardner doing this shows how he used this specific detail and structure to reach his purposeful craftsmanship, which was to develop Henry’s character in a specific way. Another reason that I believe that this was strong literature is because I believe the way Gardner used these literary techniques helped develop a character that is as a fully realized person rather than just a generic type of character. The way Gardner used his literary techniques created Henry as a very complex character who is struggling with depression. Rather than just deliberately saying that Henry is sad Gardner instead used these literary techniques to show the reader how depressed Henry really is and I believe doing this makes this chapter stand out as very good literature. According to Harold Bloom ““…the representation
In “Nickel Mountain” Gardner uses setting as one way to characterize Henry Soames. In the opening line of the passage the author tells us that Soames’s heart was bad, his business was struggling, and he was close to a mental breakdown. After this opening line Gardner sets up the setting to match this description about …show more content…
One reason why I consider this chapter as good literature is because how the work’s detail and structure reveal deliberate and purposeful craftsmanship. The main point of this chapter was to develop Henry Soames as a depressed dying man. Throughout the chapter Gardner successfully developed literary techniques such as setting, writing in limited 3rd person point of view, and description. He did not put so much detail into developing these techniques throughout the chapter for the sake of it but did it because he wanted to characterize Henry Soames’s character in a particular way. Gardner doing this shows how he used this specific detail and structure to reach his purposeful craftsmanship, which was to develop Henry’s character in a specific way. Another reason that I believe that this was strong literature is because I believe the way Gardner used these literary techniques helped develop a character that is as a fully realized person rather than just a generic type of character. The way Gardner used his literary techniques created Henry as a very complex character who is struggling with depression. Rather than just deliberately saying that Henry is sad Gardner instead used these literary techniques to show the reader how depressed Henry really is and I believe doing this makes this chapter stand out as very good literature. According to Harold Bloom ““…the representation