Writer/Novel/Poem 1. How effective is the author’s writing? 2. How far is the reader involved? 3.
r involved? 3. How far is the narrator involved?
What is the impact of the reader?
MARGARET
ATWOOD
The Handmaid’s Tale -sense of confinement is created by the - 1st
person and the present tense In which the
-
details about her current life are told while
flashbacks to her earlier life are told in the
past tense
- our vision is limited by her willingness
to speak (about her daughter…)
The Edible woman The reader’s vision of the world is limited
to Marrian’s increasingly distorted point of
view.
SAUL BELLOW
Humboldt’s Gift The book is a roman a clef.
-It’ tone is sometimes self-mocking and
sometimes grandiose
Seize the Day -the tone is dark and constantly in flux,
it illustrates the dark and solemn mood of
the modern mad but it finds redemption in
its ultimate optimism
JOSEPH HELLER
Catch 22 -the narrator presents ridiculous behavior
and illogical arguments in a satirical tone
ISHIGURO KAZUO
The remains of the day Extremely correct and formal diction,
with many English locutions, though
hints of nostalgia and regrets
It is told in….point narrator
-the 1st point narrator/ subjective
narrative/
self narrative technique
-alternative point of view, The work is
divided into 3 section: the first section
employs the 1st point of view, the seconf
section- the 3rd person and the third
section returns to the 1st person point of
view as the narrator reclaims her identity.
-the 1st person point of view, the close
proximity between the reader and narrator
makes the story more directly engaging.
-alternative point of view:
-the point of view changes as does the
tense.
Mostly the narrator takes the protagonist’s
,Tommy, point of view but the point of
view encompasses also the other
characters’ thoughts
- the 3rd person point of view focusing on
what Yossarian does, thinks and feels
-the 1st person point of view of on English
butler, Stevens
The protagonist is the narrator Offred.
We can see what she chooses to show us ,
our vision is limited by her willingness to
speak (about her daughter…)
The narrator does not change, the voice
changes as her perspective of herself
alters.
- the reader sees the events through the
eyes of one character who speaks in his
own voice and who is thinking about
abstract concepts, he contemplates life
rather than living actively
-an omniscient 3rd person narrator that
fluctuates in and out of the minds of all the
characters in the novel, but takes primarily
the voice of the protagonist, Tommy
Wilhelm.
-the anonymous narrator is omniscient/
omnipresent seeing and knowing all
-Stevens is not a reliable narrator
because he often deludes himself and as
the narrative is entirely in his perspective-
misleads us as well.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses The book has a variety of tones distributed
in its’ 18 episodes such as:
-straightforward, self-conscious and
playful, hyperbolic, sentimental,
sensational, satirical, tired, scientific
- the 15 episode doesn’ t have either a
narrator or a tone
D.H. LAWRENCE
Women in love -incredibly modernist in tone plus
The Rainbow serious stylistic weaknesses (use of
metaphors, symbolism instead of direct
description, hyperboles,repetitions)
DAVID LODGE
Nice Work -the tone is ironic, humorous and light
TONI MORRISON
Beloved -the tone changes from character to
character and reflects their attitudes toward
the events
Song of Solomon -The tone is dense, loaded, locked,
stormy, straightforward and engaging.
VLADIMIR
NABOKOV
Lolita The tone is darkly comic, sly,
intellectual, alternating between bemused
weariness and sweeping romanticism.
-alternative point of view:
By reading the book we find through all
these18 episodes the 1st person point of
view, 3rd person, interior monologue or
the play-script form.
- the 3rd point of view
- the 3rd point of view
-the anonymous narrator speaks in the 3rd
person point of view
- 1st person when characters serve as
narrators and express their personal
opinions
- the 3rd person point of view but
concentrates at times on what individual
characters are thinking, feeling, seeing and
hearing.
-the 1st person point of view, Humberts
narrates his account of his affair with
Lolita.
-Throughout the book we have an
anonymous narrator, a variety of
narrators featured in the 14 episode, in
th 3rd episode we have Stephen’s thoughts,
in 13 ep we have amalgamation of
anonymous narrator, in 15ep we do not
have a narrator and the 18 ep is in the 1st
person Molly Bloom
- the omniscient narrator tells people’s
feelings and watch their internal states,
does not inject very much in the narrative,
there are few places where the author
himself is speaking through the characters.
-the 3rd person narrator takes us into his
thoughts
-the primary narrator is anonymous and
omniscient.
In parts of the book the narration is taken
2over by the characters themselves who
relate and comment on the events.
- the omniscient narrator.
The novel is told through limited
omniscient narration, he switches focus
from character to character.
Humberts narrates the novel from his
prison cell, five years after the events he
describes. The narrator focuses only on
his own thoughts and emotions
GEORGE ORWELL
1984 -the tone is dark, frustrated, pessimistic
-brutal, explicit language of the torture
scene
Animal Farm -the tone is objective, stating external
facts and rarely digressing into
philosophical meditations.
-the mixture of this tone with outrageous
trajectory of the plo, steeps the story in an
ever mounting irony.
LAURENCE STERNE
Tristram Shandy -conventional time scheme and its self-
declared digressive/ progressive style
JOHN UPDIKE
He Centaur - depression tone is used to describe lack
of self confidence and depressiveness
Rabbit , Run The tone is one of the sympathy
EDWARD ALBEE
Who’s afraid ofVirginia -the tone is sardonic and filled with dark
Woolf? humor.
The writer brings up the idea of private and
public images in marriages.
He uses the theme of phoniness/ many
characters project false images of
themselves in public situations,
-the 3rd person point of view to show the
reader both the internal and experience of
living under a totalitarian government
-the 3rd person point of view.
The story is told from the point of view of
the common animals of Animal Farm.
- the 1st person point of view.
The writer draws the reader into an
unusually active and participatory role. He
invites the reader to question the opinions
and assumptions that Tristam expresses.
-the story is mostly told in the 3rd point of
view by omniscient narrator, there are also
several chapters told from the 1st point of
view by Peter
-the 3rd person point of view from the
perspective of Harry Rabbit
-stream of consciousness style.
- the omniscient narrator
-we get information only through
Winston’s eyes, we feel the same emotions
as the protagonist
The anonymous narrator of the story is
almost nonentity, notable for no individual.
The author does not appear as a narrator or
major character.
-subjective narrative technique.
The narrative self-reflexivity being
revealed by the fictional author’s
consciousness which is the filter through
which everything in the book passes.
-there is an objective narrator, dissolved in
the text, impersonal, with no name. he is an
omniscient/ omnipresent narrator.
-omniscient narrator
-the narrator will slip into other characters’
heads occasionally.
-we see Rabbit through the eyes of some
young men playing basketball. we get
insight from peering into the minds of Jack
and Lucy (narrative shifts)
= who’s afraid of living without false
illusions
- the writer shows the emotional truths
through the eyes of her characters.
-she tries to get inside their heads and
really show what it is like to be them
SAMEL BECKETT
Waiting For Godot -desolate yet humorous tone, the tone is -the 3rd person point of view -omniscient narrator
very bare, empty and bleak but because -although there is no narrator and is in the -the play doesn’t have a narrator through
of its emptiness the author ties in humor format of a play, you can understand all whose eyes or voice we learn the story
and irony with it, hence the genre is the character’s thoughts and feelings.
tragicomedy -helps the reader understand the characters
A fine example of the Theatre of the more and where are they coming from or
Absurd movement which took place in why they do the things they do.
1950-1960
-a drama which portrays the human
struggle in a senseless world
HAROLD PINTER
The Caretaker The language is either choppy dialogue -the 3rd person limited point of view -omniscient narrator
full of interruptions or long speeches that -the audience has access to only the
is a vocalized train of thought characters’ words and actions.
-the text is presented in a casual way,
simple
- blends Realism with Theatre of the
Absurd where language is used in a
manner that heightens the audience’s
awareness of the language itself, often
through repetition and circumventing (a
ocoli) dialogue
- absurdist play because of its apparent
lack of plot and action.
T.S. ELIOT
The Love Song Of Alfred -express the fragile psychological state of -the 1st person point of view/ self -the narrator is a middle-aged man who
J.Prufrock humanity in the 20 century. narrative technique is in love with a lady but lacks the
- it’s a dramatic narrative poem and courage to express his feelings for her.
reflects the thoughts of a person searching -the narrator expresses through his
for love in an uncertain world. regrets of aging and frustration that
time doesn’t wait for anyone.
The Waste Land One of the most important poems of the -the 1st person point of view -the narrator I shifts from different
20th century - the poem’s narrations are presented identities to different periods without any
-it shifts between voices of satire and from different perspectives with the clear transitory stage.
prophecy featuring abrupt and most recurrent one adopted being 1st
unannounced changes of speaker, location person narration.
and time.
W.B.YEATS
Sailing To Byzantium -the tone is meditative as the speaker
searches for answers
- it has a tone of longing, for he is sick
with desire.
–the theme is the triumph of art over death
-the tone is reinforced by the sound of
the letter ‘’o’’ heavily used in the poem
Leda And The Swan The poem is a mythological one, a sonnet
based on mythology with powerful and
evocative language
-The tone is violent with forceful words
that represent a violent, aggressive,
masculine discard of the girl.
The Second Coming -the tone is ominous, prophetic,
unnerved, foreboding, eerie (straniu)
- it is written in a very rough iambic
pentameter with violent, stunning
imagery an terrifying ritualistic
language.
-the poem is in very old verse form which
is written as a narrative verse in 1st
person,
-The 3rd person point of view/ subjective
point of view
- the 1st person point of view, the speaker
only mentions himself once.
The speaker’s involvement begins
objective, detailing the narrative than
shifts to a subjective point of view.
-the speaker introduces readers to a world
that has no room in it for the elderly.
- the speaker is an aged man who comes to
the realization that youth and sensual life
no longer an option for him and he starts a
spiritual journey to the ideal world of
Byzantium
The speaker retells the story from Greek
mythology.
-by descriptive words that indicate Leda’s
weakness and helplessness increase the
sensory impact of the poem.
-the speaker asserts, the world is near a
revelation. He is someone capable of
seeing things that no one else can see. He
is a poet-prophet.