Paper 2 - Blogging the Question

Exact Question: In novels and short stories, characters tend to have both "an inner life" and a "public life." both of these may be part of the fiction, if not equally so in every work. Choose examples from your reading to discuss how and how effectively these two aspects of human existence are presented.

Question in my words: Discuss how and how effectively character's having "an inner life" and a "public life" are presented in two works.

Primary Element of Fiction, Use of Language, and/or Style that you are asked to addressed: Characterization

Two part-three works: As I Lay Dying and The Bluest Eye


Exact Question: A story has to be told by somebody. Compare in detail your impressions of the "story tellers" in two or three novels or short stories you have studied. Was the "story teller" the same as the writer (implicitly or explicitly) or not? How does this question influence your reading?

Question in my words: Compare what you thought about the narrators in two or three novels or short stories you have studies. Was the narrator and the writer the same or not? How do narrators affect how you read a story?

Primary Element of Fiction, Use of Language, and/or Style that you are asked to addressed: Characterization

Two Part-Three Works: As I Lay Dying and The Bluest Eye

Paper 1 - The Unseen Commentary Rita Dove

Introduction: Thesis = In Rita Dove's Adolescence - II, Dove uses imagery, figurative language, and personification to describe the feelings a young girl, who was raped, in order to demonstrate how life is dark and empty after innocence is taken.

Body:
A: Imagery - Dirty old men lured her into a trap (possibly kidnapped) and raped her
1) Visual
+ Seal Men: eyes round as dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines
~ men look at teen girls in ways they shouldn't
~ they look at her like she's something good to eat
~ they are no good, sharp, dangerous
~ glittering like ink
+ Setting - Dark and Scary
~ "it is night"
~ bathroom
~ sweat behind knees/baby breasts alert
~ blinds/moon, tiles
~ where men are sitting and standing
~ patting bodies
+ Actions - fear, disturbing
~ Clutch ragged holes
2) Olfactory
+ They bring the scent of licorice
~ smelly old men
~ tricksters
B: Figurative Language
1) Metaphors
+ seal men
~ seals are slick, slimy, black
+ "tiles quiver in pale strips"
~ she's quivering and pale because she's scared
+ "venetian blinds slice up the moon"
~dirty old men slice up her vagina
+ "ragged holes"
~ torn vagina
2) Similes
+ "Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue"
~ mouth feels nasty, night is disturbing and uncomfortable for her now
+ "glittering like pools of ink under moonlight"
~ men look black and dirty and slick and slimy
C: Personification
1) Venetian blinds slicing moon
~ the beautiful sight and image of the moon is now ruined
~ her innocence was lost under the light of the moon and now the moon is dead to her
2) Night rests
~ night means nothing to her anymore
~ night is dead to her
~ her innocence was laid to rest at night

Conclusion: Restate Thesis = Rita Dove's use of imagery, figurative language, and personification reveal the feelings of a young girl after her innocence is lost and demonstrate how life is dark and empty after innocence is lost.