3. Lecture 5: Description: People, places, and things.

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1. What is description? 1. Description is the pattern of narrative
development that aims to make vivid a place, object, character, or group.
2. What are the basic approaches to description in the works of
classic authors? What is the difference between how Walter Scott and Jane
Austin handle descriptions? 2. The basic approaches to the description are the
look from the character’s form, figure, complexion, face, eyes or eyebrows to
the jewelry and clothing. Walter Scott used to create the frustration with his
abundance of description, when Jane Austin didn’t overwhelm the reader with
them.
3. Pay attention to what the lecturer says about the role of de-
scription: “A good description not only helps to set the scene and cre- ate a
vivid impression.” What other purposes can it serve? 3. The role of
description not only to set the scene and create a vivid impression, but also to
raise questions and open new opportunities to the reader. It helps our
understanding of the characters and sharp our interest to the story.
4. Through whose eyes are the opening descriptions in John Up-
dike’s story “Pigeon Feathers” (1962) given? How do they help us to see
why David is not happy about the move to the farm where his mother was
raised? 4. The opening descriptions in “Pigeon Feathers” are given through the
eyes of the main character, the 14- year boy, David. They help us to see why
David is not happy about the move to the farm, because they are described
according to his feelings at the moment (crowdy dangy farm house).
5. Point out the specific details in the description of the book and
think of the reason for their selection. What words in the descrip- tion
convey the sense of discomfort? What is the role of the descrip- tive detail –
the signature in the front of the book – in conveying David’s feelings
towards his parents and towards all adults? 5. The book mentioned in the
story is the volume of the outline of the history by Wells, it is described with
such specific detail as: faded colour of the bounding; nasty, sweetish smell; the
look of the signature (its size and shape); yellow edges of the pages. The reason
to such selection is to make us feel this book as real as if we are holding it right
now. As if we were David. The words that convey the sense of discomfort for
David are: “the print is smack”, “pages are like rectangulars of the glass”, it is
vaguely upsetting the boy with its look from the very beginning. It like the
image of disturbing ideas to him.
The signature of his mother on front page (“upright, bold, careful”, its her
maiden’s name) shows David’s feelings to the parents and all adults in general -
he doesn’t like or trust them. He is not eager to enter their world. Although he is
curious about his mother, what happend to her, how and will it happen to him?
 6. What striking details do we find when the reader’s attention is
turned from objects and things to people? What do they imply? All of this
brings us to another very important point: You can't always deal with
descriptions separately. Sometimes, you need to look for patterns or
connections. If you do that here, you'll notice that the descriptions of the father
and grandmother work to reinforce the earlier association of the ugly book (and
its upsetting ideas) with the ugly, decaying adult world.
7. What connection is there between the description of Jesus as “a
kind of hobo from a minor colony of the Roman Empire” and the spiritual
state of David? For David, this is simply inconceivable. Why would anyone
ever say such a thing? How could anyone ever get away with it?
Before long, however, the book has gotten under David's skin. He can't
stop thinking about it. What if it's true? What if Jesus was just "a kind of hobo"?
Interestingly, it's at this point that the story turns its attention from objects
and things to people. It doesn't give us the full-on, head-to-toe description we
might expect from Sir Walter Scott, but it does offer a good many striking
details.
8. In what way are the descriptions of the father and the grand-
mother associated with the description of the book? What is the role of the
subtle use of the adjective” yellow”? all of these descriptions—the initial
description of the book, and the later descriptions of the characters—raise
another upsetting possibility: that the human body is nothing special; that it's
really just another object, another thing. The bodies of David's relatives—his
grandmother, his father—those bodies are clearly subject to disease and decay.
They're already turning yellow, and they could easily start to smell—and
eventually, they'll die. When they die, as David realizes in the very next scene,
they'll be buried underground forever.
9. Follow the lines of the story and think of how the detailed
descriptions of the bodies of animals help to convey the resolution of
David’s spiritual crisis.
He lost himself in the geometrical tides as the feathers now broadened
and stiffened to make an edge for flight, now softened and constricted to cup
warmth around the mute flesh. And across the surface of the infinitely adjusted
yet somehow effortless mechanics of the feathers played idle designs of color,
no two alike, designs executed, it seemed, in a controlled rapture, with a joy
that hung level in the air above and behind him. Yet these birds bred in the
millions and were exterminated as pests.
10. Why is it important to pay attention to what is not described?
The absent of description can be made on purpose and it is very reviling
as, for example, the absence of David’s description.
11. What is described in the opening scene of Flannery O’Connor’s
story “Revelation” (1964)? From whose point of view is everyone and
everything shown? What technique of narration does the author resort to?
 The scene described tells us about the main character, a large lady with
bright black eyes who enters the room which should have made for her by the
blond child sitting on the sofa and wearing dirty rubber. The reader sees this
through the eyes of the woman, because it was only her who sees her as a lady.
Free indirect discourse. (Free indirect speech is a style of third-person narration
which uses some of the characteristics of third-person along with the essence of
first-person direct speech; it is also referred to as free indirect discourse, free
indirect style, or, in French, discours indirect libre.
Free indirect speech can be described as a "technique of presenting a
character's voice partly mediated by the voice of the author" (or, reversing the
emphasis, "that the character speaks through the voice of the narrator") with the
voices effectively merged. This effect is partially accomplished by eliding direct
speech attributions, such as "he said" or "she said)
12. Comment on the following quotations from O’Connor about the
importance of detailed descriptions to her work.
The first and most obvious characteristic of fiction is that it deals with
reality through what can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched.
O’Connor admits that there are other ways of dealing with reality. The
descriptions with such words and phrases engage or activate the senses of the
readers.
To say that fiction proceeds by the use of detail does not mean the
simple mechanical piling up of detail. Detail has to be controlled by some
overall purpose. And every detail has to be put to work for you. Art is
selective. What is there is essential and creates movement. Accumulation of
detail is not ended itself. The details are not simply piled up. They are chosen,
selected, carefully arranged and than put to work. All with the large control
purpose in mind.
14. What is the controlling purpose of description in O’Connor’s
story? First O’Connor’s wants us to see what Mrs Turpin is like. Second she
wants to trick us in the behaving like Mrs Turpin? trick us in the being as
dismissive and judgemental as this character can be. Through this trick she can
convince us that the story is more than a look at a fat foolish lady. Who is the
target of O’Connor’s satire? The reader when she or he reads a story, we
think that we cannot be as this woman and we put her down as she does with
every person in this story. So the story is not only about her it is also about us.
How do we come to understand that it is a story about us as well, and to
obtain some self-knowledge? Every time we read one oh those descriptions,
we can down Mrs Turpin of being judgmental, but we run the risk of make very
same mistakes.
15. What is Mrs. Turpin’s spiritual crisis? Comment on the
description of her final vision.
 There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in
their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks
and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs.
Mrs. Turpin has always thought that she would go to the heaven and
moreover she would be near in front of the line. This time however things look
different. The terms white-trash and black niggers come from Mrs. Turpin and
not from the narrator or the authors.
…bring up the rear of the procession was a tribe of people whom she
recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had al- ways had a
little of everything, and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward
to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great
dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common
sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by
their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned
away.
We don’t draw attention what people are wearing and how do they look
like, because it doesn’t matter. And here we can see Mrs. Turpin revolution. She
has a chance and she has a choice and we don’t know what she will do the end
is opened.
16. What is not described in the story? How does the absence of these
descriptions help us to understand what Mrs. Turnip’s revelation is?
This time, we don't hear what the people are wearing and don't really get
a sense of what they look like. That's because it no longer matters. It never has
mattered—not to God, anyway. It never has mattered—not to God, anyway.
This is Mrs. Turpin's revelation, long promised and long delayed. Now she has a
chance—and a choice.
17. The ending of the story is open. What do you think Mrs. Turnip
will do? How do you receive the story’s message?
Perhaps Mrs Turnip provides us with a field for reflection, thereby
allowing us to come up with our own ending to the story. This depends on the
emotions, feelings, and impressions that are evoked when reading the book.
Observations and descriptions are not strictly literary matter-they have a
spiritual dimension. Looking at things carefully, noticing all the details, can be a
source of comfort - if you look at things quickly, assuming you already know
what they mean ... well, it can get you into trouble, as Mrs. Turpin does in
"revelation."
18. Sum up what the lecture says about the purposes of descriptions.
To review, then: It's OK to skip descriptions when they seem formulaic or
when they slow down the action, but skipping is not OK—or at least not
advisable—in many other cases. In those cases, details are not merely presented
—not merely piled up, as O'Connor explains. They're presented from a
particular point of view. They help us to see what the characters see—and invite
us to rethink our own place in the story. Sometimes the things that seem trivial,
or cosmetic, or even ornamental—like passages of description—are directly
connected to the largest, most urgent issues in fiction. It can also serve a larger
purpose—helping us to understand how the world looks and feels to the
characters. Whether a description is omitted on purpose or by accident, left out
consciously or unconsciously, its absence can be very revealing.