Plot

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a story of Sonny, a young jazz musician, who is addicted to heroin and arrested for abusing and selling the drugs. He later returns to his childhood neighbors after he is released from prison. Even though drugs remain central to the story, it is also clear that family, music, and struggling in life is evident in the story. Sonny tries to escape reality through music but is tied to addiction. The narration is perceived…...

The short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates focuses on the summer of the main character Connie and ultimately what happens when Arnold Friend goes to her house one afternoon when she is home alone. Arnold Friend victimizes Connie, a self-absorbed teenager, and it is implied that the story ends with something unspeakable happening to her. Oates drew inspiration for her story from a Life magazine article about a serial killer in Tucson,…...

Dramatically Falstaff's world of idleness, dishonesty, self-indulgence and irresponsibility is in direct contrast to the honour and nobility that Prince Hal finally achieves. By integrating him so completely into the interrogation, Shakespeare ensures that the audience is continually provided with an alternative perspective to the serious themes. Even when Falstaff claims to be a hero 'I gave him this wound in his thigh', the audience cannot dislike him because it has been taught to identify with his irrepressible humour and…...

Short stories often develop a theme in a short time frame. Their authors must do this with limited settings and characters. The short story Killer, written by Paula Goslings, contains many themes with the main one being deception. One of the ways the author expresses this is through the narrative convention of style or mood. In this piece the convention of plot is also utilised by the author to develop this idea. Characterisation is another narrative convention successfully utilised to…...

It is Christmas evening, and Nora Helmer has just arrived from Christmas shopping. She has a conversation with her husband Torvald that shows that he likes to act as being superior (while Nora obeys) and that for long they have had to struggle to save money, but now Torvald is promoted and they are going to be affluent. Separately arrive Dr. Rank, a good friend of Helmers', and Christine Linde, an old schoolmate of Nora's, who has not met her for…...

The effect is that we see Mickey's and Sammy's minds stuck in the past, as if they are still children. We think that life is not quite real to them, they don't believe it, it's just a game. This reveals that maybe, although Mickey is forced to act in an adult way, he still remembers his childhood, and is still a child inside, shocked to find that the game has become real. We, the audience, are shocked also, because this…...

Michael Billington, theatre critic for the Guardian, asked 'whether there is any reason to revive a play which seems totally offensive to our age and society' (6 May 1978). With specific reference to the last scenes of the play, explore the methods which a contemporary audience can respond to Shakespeare's discussion of the relationship in between Kate and Petruchio To many desultory observers The Taming of the Shrew might be conjectured as being exceptionally misogynistic, an intolerable illustration of female…...

In his Poetics, Aristotle considered plot (mythos) the most important element of drama--more important than character, for example. A plot must have, Aristotle says, a beginning, middle, and an end, and the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being either necessary or probable. Character: A character is a person in a narrative work of arts (such as a novel, play, or film). Derived from the ancient Greek word, particularly when enacted by an actor in…...

Literature has elements by which we can examine the piece (book, poem, play, etc.) composed. These components are; plot, character, setting, style, structure, viewpoint, dispute, diction, foreshadowing and significance (Scholes, 1991) 3 of them will be discussed here further. The plot of the literature is the method the story goes, the line of the story, the way it begins, establishes and ends. Essentially, the plot informs us what happens in the story. The plot can consist of an exposition (setting…...

1. a) Character vs. Character: Mr. White vs. Mrs. White. Mrs. White forces Mr. White to wish for their son, Herbert, to come alive again, but Mr. White knows there will be a consequence (Herbert will come back a zombie, or such thing) and does not want to make the wish. 2. Character vs. Unknown: Mr. White vs. the knocking on the door. Mr. White doesn’t want to help Mrs. White open the door because he is afraid of what…...

What I need to know about character: Characterization is the means by which a writer reveals a character to a reader, including appearance, speech and behavior, thoughts and feelings, and other characters' reactions and opinions. There are four main elements of characterization. These include: How a character looks b. How a character acts c. How other characters react to this character d. What the character thinks and feels Strong literary descriptions provide readers with the important details that allow us…...

There are two aspects which influence the content of a novel. They are the extrinsic elements and the intrinsic elements (Sukada, 1987 : 47). Extrinsic elements are the elements comes from of literary work such as the elements of history, social and culture, psychology, religion and philosophy. Intrinsic elements are the whole elements which make up structure of literary work such as plot, setting, theme, character, style, etc. this case, the writer will talk about the aspect of intrinsic elements…...

Tomashevsky is a Formalist. (From Wikipedia: In literary theory, formalism refers to critical approaches that analyze, interpret, or evaluate the inherent features of a text. The formalist approach reduces the importance of a text’s historical, biographical, and cultural context.) Introduction to Tomashevsky's Approach The introduction to “Thematics” by Tomashevsky states that Tomashevsky’s essay is a proposal of how to analyze a narrative. A narrative must have a theme and enlist the readers’ emotions. Tomashevsky makes a distinction between Plot and…...

Q. PLOT Vs CHARACTER In Tragedy In his immortal creation Poetics Aristotle mentions six formative elements of tragedy --- ‘Plot’, ‘Character’, ‘Thought’, ‘Diction’, ‘Spectacle’ and ‘Song’. And among them ‘plot’ gets the prior attention and importance. Aristotle claims ‘plot’ to be the soul of tragedy. In his view character as secondary to the plot. He in his book Poetics opines “Plot is the fundamental thing, the soul of tragedy, whereas character is secondary.” [Chap—7]. It is only in the context…...

A plot twist is a change in the expected direction or outcome of the plot of a film, television series, video game, novel, comic or other fictional work. It is a common practice in narration used to keep the interest of an audience, usually surprising them with a revelation. Some "twists" are foreshadowed and can thus be predicted by many viewers/readers, whereas others are a complete shock. When a plot twist happens near the end of a story, especially if…...

Salarino and Solanio, in The Merchant of Venice, play the important role of bringing news to the stage to advance the plot to the audience, and the role of defining the characters in the play to the audience. While still playing the roles of minor characters, Salarino and Solanio are important aspects in creating less confusion, keeping the plot interesting, and drawing the audience into the play. As stated before, Salarino and Solanio help to bring news on stage to…...

Through out this novel, a lot of tragic and powerful events transpire. They make the reader think quite a bit on what they have just read and after this, you tend to react. These events and occurrences are the main idea behind the story and they continue to constantly grab your attention and you keep you focused on what is going on in the novel. However, too many big impact and negative events take away from the story and it's…...

Shirley Jackson's, "The Lottery" concerns a small town's annual lottery drawing and the grim circumstances that ensue. In this short but disturbingly profound piece of work, Shirley Jackson communicates to the reader the theme of scapegoatism along with its implications concerning traditions. In the village where this lottery takes place, we find many familiar elements: a post office, a grocery store, schools and a coal mine. In this village, Mr. Summers owns the coal mine, so his business has made…...

Deception and lies are what makes King Lear a tragedy. The play is a result, of the consequences triggered off by lies and falsehoods that were told in King Lea's family, as well as in the family of the Earl of Gloucester. In this play, Shakespeare added a sub-plot to the main-plot and both are based on the same events, differing slightly according to the story. The main-plot involves Lear and his three daughters whereas the sub-plot makes use of…...

The Castle starts just after the men of a town have returned from fighting in one of the crusades. It would appear from their reactions that none of them expected much to have changed whilst they were away however they are shocked or even appalled to discover just what the women got up to when their backs were turned, most notably the abolition of the church and the lack of social status, the men clearly are not used to everyone…...

The Blue Jar contains a variety of important elements in terms of prose fiction. With a unique plot structure, manner of symbolism, theme, and depiction of characters, Dinesen develops an interesting work of fiction that seeks to instill certain ideals in the reader. The point of view is that of an omniscient narrator. The Blue Jar’s plot follows the track of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action in a unique manner with a “double plot” mechanism. Also, it isn’t solely…...

Robbie Jones Ms. Cheney English 1 Honors Period 1 22 May 2012 Tragic Character and Plot in Things Fall Apart Despite being written in 1959 and set in Nigeria, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe reads much like a Greek tragedy. AmidstPrinciples from Aristotle’s theory of tragedy in the Poetics are evident throughout the novel, and contribute to the development of the protagonist and the incidents of the plot. Amid the images of slaves, missionaries, and western colonialism, Achebe uses…...

The plot of “A Rose for Emily” separates from the structure of most short stories by not following the normal chronological order. William Faulkner uses flashbacks to give a better understanding of the internal conflict between the protagonist, Miss Emily, and society. The nonlinear plot structure of “A Rose for Emily” gives life to the story and creates a different way of comprehending the narrative by keeping the reader confused on what exactly is happening. Faulkner begins the first section…...

The plot summary of the old man of the sea The Old Man and The Sea is the story of an epic that makes a very great effort between an old, who has a lot of experience of a particular activity and he is the epitome of a modern human life, it was happened in a small fishing village near Havana, Cuba, The waters of the Gulf of Mexico, in the 1940,s in the twentieth century. The writers of modern…...