Narratology

For this writing workshop, I will use three critical approaches to discuss the film, The Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948). Of the six approaches, I chose the “National Cinemas”, “Auteur”, and “Ideology” approaches. The “National Cinemas” approach to analyzing film takes into account the culture and national characteristics that influence how a narrative is filmed. To understand and fully appreciate a film, one must understand the historical and cultural conditions that surround it. The writer…

The setting is the framework in which a story takes place. It includes the time, place, or the social environment and creates an immense effect on the plot and the characters. Setting establishes the mood of events, creating an atmosphere which corresponds to the characters emotions. In Anton Chekov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, the setting plays a major role in establishing the characters and their relationship between each other. The first example of this instance is Anna and Dimitris first time…

The narrative voice is the perspective of a novel, and it is through this voice that the reader receives and becomes connected to the story. This voice can appear in a variety of ways; for example, one common perspective is first person point of view, through which the narrator speaks directly to the reader by using personal pronouns such as ‘I.’ By creating a character that speaks directly to the reader, they become personally tied to what the narrator is telling them. In this way the reader…

In literature, a literary device known as symbolism is used to convey an idea about a subject, person, or place. In the works of Amy Tan and Julia Alvarez, symbolism is influential throughout their stories. The story of ¡Yo! is a great example of how well Alvarez converts the symbol of a haunting folklore to a real-life terror. Although the story of ¡Yo! takes place in the United States, it tells the story of a family that escapes from The Dominican Republic during the time of a terrifying wave…

The story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is about an American man and a girl, Jig. Hemingway described this story like an iceberg, where we can see only some parts of the iceberg which is on the water, but we can’t see the parts of the iceberg which is underwater. This story is mostly composed of dialogue with a few pieces of descriptive detail. The American man and Jig are at a small station-bar. They are waiting for the train which will go to Madrid. The story of their…

Questions (1) Provide an explanaion of the literary style ‘magic(al) realism’. Then, demonstrate (using various examples from the novel), how Esquivel uses this style in the novel. Conclude with your evaluation of this style ( opinion - did you like it or not, why?). Magic realism or magical realism is a genre where magical elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment. In the book “Like Water For Chocolate”, there are many magical factors you can find by…

To conduct the research, textual evidences are collected to analyze the structure of the play “The Dreams of Tipu Sultan” by Girish Karnad. The research is qualitative in nature. To explore the structure of the play, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, the researcher draws on the dream reality sequence, memories, diary, and characters within the play and the concept about the structure of two act play by Richard Toscan in his book “play writing seminars”. Richard Toscan was Dean of the School of…

1. The definition of character as it relates to literature is a person, animal or creature that takes part in the action of a story, play or other literary work. To demonstrate I chose the movie The Blind Side and the main character Michael Oher. After completing the descriptions of the types of characters listed I had to go back and add more to Michael's character. When I first wrote the paper all I saw was that Michael was the main character in the story, he is the character the story is…

In Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust portrays how human senses are always indirect, and human emotions circulate through the fact. Proust demonstrates this phenomenon various times in his novel, and the indirect sensory experiences and the circulation of emotions are always in correlations with each other. This can be observed from various passages in his novel. When the narrator falls in love with Swann’s daughter Gilberte, he does not love ‘her’ exactly; but loves the Gilberte he himself created (pg.…

Throughout any piece of literature one or more themes are presented in the story. A theme is a topic or an underlying message throughout the text. Authors, like Arthur Miller, present themes through major characters' actions, their thoughts, dialogue, and character motivations. Stories have a theme to help the readers relate and to connect to their characters and to maintain the story's soul. One of the thematic ideas of The Crucible is that intimidation, dishonesty, and revenge can lead to…