Please take out a notebook.
You need three sections
•Journals
•Literary Terms
•Notes on texts
In this Power Point, when I talk
about
• STYLE terms will be yellow
• THEME will be red
LITERARY TERMS-- Style
LITERARY TERMS YOU SHOULD KNOW
• Point of View (handout)
• Tone (handout)
• Imagery
• Surrealism
• Stream of Consciousness
___________
• THEME (not style)
Two areas of study:
STYLE and THEME

STYLE refers to Formal aspects of the story;
how the story is told.
Deals with Point of View, Plot Structure, Tone,
Imagery, etc. (Modernism experiments with
style.)

THEME refers to ideas or truths about life.
(These are also specifically Modern.)
“Memento Mori”
STYLE
 Plot– Major gaps reflecting subjective view
of time (also a theme here)
 Each 3rd person “chapter” happens
multiple times (indicated by “maybe”)
 The plot could be cyclical--the end leads
back to the beginning and could be
interchanged
 Point of View– experimental:
 use of two P.O.V.’s
 Third Person Limited and Second Person
Memento Mori
Themes
SELF /Consciousness
(this is “subject”– below are questions to build THEME)
 How do we define ourselves– “I think, therefore I
am”? (Descartes) Are you what you believe you
are? (a good person– what about how you
cheated/lied/stole?)
 Are you the sum of your memories? (What about
what you have forgotten or altered?)
 Are you the sum of your actions?
 Are you what mommy thinks you are? (What about
when she– or your wife– is gone?)
 FRACTURED SENSE OF SELF
Life/ existence



Can we define our own lives and
give them meaning– rather than
look for meaning from God,
social institutions, mommy, etc.
(You get yours from mommy)
Is there an objective moral
guideline for that purpose?
(Does God judge it? Can “to get
the most stuff” be a valid
purpose then?)
LIFE IS MEANINGLESS/ ONLY
WE GIVE IT MEANING
The Nature of Time
 Though we measure it with minutes and seconds
and such, it is subjective. Consider:
 “Time flies when you are having fun”
 Time is dragging by right now
And yet a minute is always sixty seconds…
EVIDENCE IN THE TEXT:
– Gaps in plot
– Use of “Maybe”
– Earl’s comments about time
Alienation
 From friends and family
 Society– its rewards (jobs, status) and
punishments (prison)
 God– His love and his rules (Via the first two
bullets)
Evil
 Without the rewards or punishments of
society, are people inherently evil?
 Can you do bad things but not be a bad
person?
 Is there such a thing as evil or do
circumstances just cause/allow bad things to
happen? (Which brings us to…)
stream of consciousness
 a narrative mode that seeks to portray an
individual's point of view by giving the
written equivalent of the character's thought
processes:
 a loose interior monologue, characterized by
associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can
make the prose difficult to follow.
 often depicted as overheard in the mind (or
addressed to oneself)
 or in connection to his or her actions.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
Chapter 1
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow
coming
down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the
road
met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a
glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty
Byrne
lived: she sold lemon platt.
O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.
He sang that song. That was his song.
O, the green wothe botheth.
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put
on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.
After I Was Thrown in the Water
and Before I Drowned
• Dave Eggers
More Keys to understanding
• The Language– how does it change?
• The images/ details:
• The tone changes from ___________ to
__________
denotation
a literal meaning of the word
connotation
an association (emotional or otherwise) which
the word evokes
• For example, both "woman" and "chick"
have the denotation "adult female" in
North American society, but "chick" has
somewhat negative connotations, while
"woman" is neutral.
For another example of
connotations, consider the
following:
• negative
– There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city.
• neutral
– There are over 2,000 people with no fixed
address in the city.
• positive
– There are over 2,000 homeless in the city.
• I see in the windows. I see what happens. I see the calm
held-together moments and also the treachery and I run
and run. You tell me it matters, what they all say. I have
listened and long ago I stopped. Just tell me it matters
and I will listen to you and I will want to be convinced.
You tell me that what is said is making a difference that
those words are worthwhile words and mean something.
I see what happens. I live with people who are German.
They collect steins. They are good people. Their son is
dead. I see what happens.
•
• The squirrels have things to say; they talk before
and after we jump. Sometimes while we're
jumping they talk.
• I don't know why the squirrels watch us, or why
they talk to us. They do not try to jump the gap.
The running
• and jumping feels so good even when we don't
win or fall into the gap it feels so good when we
run and jump-and when we are done the
squirrels are talking to us, to each other in their
small jittery voices
• Some of them laugh. Franklin is angry. He
walks slowly to where they're sitting; they
do not move. He grabs one in his jaws and
crushes all its bones. Their voices are
always talking but we forget they are so
small, their head and bones so tiny.
• When and why does the verb tense
change? When and why does the dog use big words?
• The verb tense and diction changes from present to past
tense when Stephen is reflecting on events or ideas. He
has had time to “intellectualize” – organize, analyze, and
judge– the events.
• The Dog names seem weird– what do you
make of them?
• P.O.V. From where is the dog speaking?
• He is dead. Remember? (BTW, that is a full sentence,
with “you”, understood. Second Person POV.)
• Franklin was angry and took five or six of
them in his mouth, crushing them, tossing
them one after the other. The other dogs
watched; none of them knew if squirrel
killing made them happy or not.
Narrative
• Stream of Consciousness*
• Repetition of words (“grabbing”)
• “Big” words for reflection (ravishing)
• Tense– present tense/ past tense when he
dies
• Plot goes beyond Story
How We Are Hungry
• The characters and narrators in How We Are Hungry, in which
longer stories are interspersed with some of Eggers's Guardian
pieces, find themselves on the edge—on the verge of breakdowns,
breakups and other crises…
• His narrative responds in kind, patrolling
what lies on and beyond the far edges of
speech and thought. In the work of lesser writers—
including some of those for whom Eggers has become a talisman—
such narration can shrink into an aesthetic of studied fauxinarticulacy ... it is a mark of what Eggers can achieve at
his best that his feeling for speech and its limitations
rarely hits false notes.
Authors have themes to which they
return
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering
Genius (2000) and the freewheeling
Velocity made a virtue of sheer sprawl;
this collection of stories points to another
quality, present in those books but
perhaps less well noted: Eggers's way with
significant omissions and ellipses .
Authors have themes to which they
return
As Anne Henry has pointed out, 'the gaps
and lacunae so often discussed in
twentieth-century criticism are not always
empty or silent, but filled with pieces of
type, marks which have voices of their
own', and Eggers's significant gaps and
lapses similarly have their silent speeches
THEME: Language fails us
Overtly stated:
 about human conversation
Suggested by:
 Steven is his name?
 Descriptions of the dog
 Language fun—diction, squirrel talk
Action versus Talk (Thought/Intellect)
 About the squirrels
 The Title
Where Are You Going, Where Have
You Been
Where Are You Going…
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Inspired by Bob Dylan Song
• Written in the sixties. In 1966 which is
relevant because…
• “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” Bob Dylan
• You must leave now, take what you need, you think will
last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
• The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
• All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something
calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow
you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
IMAGERY
A word or group of words in a literary
work which appeal to one or more of the
senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, and
smell.
The use of images serves to intensify the
impact of the work.
Imagery: EXAMPLE
• The following example of imagery in T. S. Eliot's
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
" When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.”
Uses images of pain and sickness to describe
the evening, which as an image itself
represents society and the psychology of
Prufrock, himself
STYLE—IMAGES in the story
• Music is a constant image in the story and
has significance
• This is true of America at the time– pop
music defined this young generation and
led them “astray”
Morality Tale
•
The theme of youthful, romantic fantasy. The
illusory dreams of adolescence blind them to the
harsh, dangerous world of maturity. We see
Connie separating from the world of living under
her mother's wing and breaking through to the
other side of sexual maturity, adulthood and
independence. Sexual desire can be deadly
serious stuff. It takes this experience for Connie
learn that. Until Friend pulls up the driveway,
she has been flirting with sexuality. Now she will
confront its harsher face.
Feminist
• The victimization of women is explored, and how
men act as predators in our society. The story
intensifies the fear and suspense associated with
this power differential by putting Connie in an
untenable, vulnerable situation from which she
has no choice but to leave the house with Arnold
Friend. So this story heightens our awareness of
this problem. The story asks us: is Connie really
independent? Has she left the mother's nest only
to live under the protection of the domineering
man?
Psychological Lens, sort of:
•
The story represents a case study in
manipulative psychology. Friend coerces Connie
through intimidation and identification. He's
tracked his prey, understood it, disoriented it,
and is now prepared to go in for the kill. A true
crime serial killer named Charles Schmid, the
Pied Piper of Tucson served as the inspiration
for Oates's tale. She makes Arnold Friend into a
smooth talking, play acting, and ultimately
menacing suitor. When interpreted from this
angle, the story becomes a cautionary lesson:
"don't let this happen to you!"
Allegory
• Dream allegory of death and the maiden.
An allegory is a narrative with at least two
layers of meaning: the literal and the
symbolic. The story, when read as
allegory, becomes a kind of coming of age
dreamscape where evil (or death) arrives
to corrupt what is innocent. Death escorts
the woman away from her childhood self.
You might interpret this death literally or
symbolically.
Symbols
•
•
•
•
•
•
Three– mystical number
Flies
The Highway
Mirrored sunglasses
Possibly cloven or goat-like feet
Take out the ‘r’ – A n old Fiend
Surrealism
• movement in visual art and literature, flourishing
in Europe between World Wars I and II.
Surrealism grew principally out of the
earlier Dada movement, which before World War
I produced works of anti-art that deliberately
defied reason; but Surrealism’s emphasis was
not on negation but on positive expression. The
movement represented a reaction against what
its members saw as the destruction wrought by
the “rationalism” that had guided European
culture and politics in the past and that had
culminated in the horrors of World War I.
• According to the major spokesman of the movement, the
poet and critic André Breton, who published “The
Surrealist Manifesto” in 1924,
• Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious
and unconscious realms of experience so
completely that the world of dream and fantasy
would be joined to the everyday rational world in
“an absolute reality, a surreality.”
• Drawing heavily on theories adapted from Sigmund
Freud, Breton saw the unconscious as the wellspring of
the imagination. He defined genius in terms of
accessibility to this normally untapped realm, which, he
believed, could be attained by poets and painters alike.
Modernism THEMES

Modern theme– the individual
separate from the family and
community? (Alienation)
THEME: Loss of Innocence/
Risk
• There is danger inherent in the
desire to grow up.
• Story can be read as an allegory:
American Society at this time was
losing it’s innocence—There is also
the “Modern” element of questioning
our forward movement or progress
while leaving behind traditional
values.
• The last image…
Violence
• We do not truly know
ourselves until confronted with
violence or death.
• Dramatic device for literature
because (see above).
The ending
• Connie felt the linoleum under her feet; it
was cool. She brushed her hair back out of
her eyes. Arnold Friend let go of the post
tentatively and opened his arms for her,
his elbows pointing in toward each other
and his wrists limp, to show that this was
an embarrassed embrace and a little
mocking, he didn't want to make her selfconscious.
• She put out her hand against the screen.
She watched herself push the door slowly
open as if she were back safe somewhere
in the other doorway, watching this body
and this head of long hair moving out into
the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.
• .
• "My sweet little blue-eyed girl," he said in a
half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with
her brown eyes but was taken up just the
same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land
behind him and on all sides of him—so
much land that Connie had never seen
before and did not recognize except to
know that she was going to it
Surrealism ..\..\Honors Modern
Fiction\SURREALISM.ppt
 The dreamlike MOOD and DIALOGUE
at
the house
 The “wolf in sheep’s clothing”
 The last image– SYMBOLIC of her entering the
adult world (loss of innocence)
A Good Man is Hard to Find
A Good Man is Hard to Find
 Flannery O’Conner
 Southern Gothic/ the
Grotesque (Faulkner)
 Catholic
 She connects her religious
concerns with being
southern, for, she says,
"while the South is hardly
Christ-centered, it is most
certainly Christ-haunted"
STYLE: GENRE-- Southern
Gothic

subgenre of the Gothic
writing style, unique to
American Literature.

Like its parent
genre, it relies on
supernatural, ironic,
or unusual events to
guide the plot.
The Grotesque

Southern Gothic

Unlike its predecessor,
it uses these tools not
for the sake of
suspense, but to
explore social issues
and reveal the cultural
character of the
American South
Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a literary device in which an
author drops subtle hints about plot
developments to come later in the story.

An example of foreshadowing might be when a character
displays a gun or knife early in the story. Merely the appearance
of a deadly weapon, even though it is used for an innocuous
purpose — such as being cleaned or whittling wood — suggests
terrible consequences later on.
In her words: Flannery
O’Conner


the creative action of the
Christian's life is to prepare his
death in Christ.
"I'm a born Catholic and death
has always been brother to my
imagination. I can't imagine a
story that doesn't properly end in
it or in its foreshadowings."
THEMES
Evil
 (Catholic concept): Redemption– never
too late. Epiphany
 The sins of the South

Modernism: Themes



Old World values (Grandma) versus Modern
world view (the family)
Cultural Relativity – definitions of Good and
Evil
The concept of Evil…this is not modern
Juxtaposition

The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the
children's mother passed him over the front seat to her.
She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him
about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes
and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin
face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave
her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field
with five or fix graves fenced in the middle of it, like a
small island. "Look at the graveyard!" the grandmother
said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying
ground. That belonged to the plantation."
Empathy/ “God’s Children”






"Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John
Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too."
"You said it," June Star said.
"In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin
veined fingers, "children were more respectful of their
native states and their parents and everything else. People
did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she
said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a
shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" she asked
and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the
back window. He waved
"He didn't have any britches on," June Star said.
"He probably didn't have any," the grandmother
explained. "Little riggers in the country don't have things
like we do. If I could paint, I'd paint that picture," she said.
The children exchanged comic books.
E.A.T. -- How racism is passed on

This story tickled John Wesley's funny bone
and he giggled and giggled but June Star didn't
think it was any good. She said she wouldn't
marry a man that just brought her a
watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother
said she would have done well to marry Mr.
Teagarden because he was a gentleman and
had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first
came out and that he had died only a few
years ago, a very wealthy man
institutional racism



The term "institutional racism" describes societal patterns that
have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise
negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of
race or ethnicity.
generally long-term and grounded more in inertia than in
intent.
United States, institutional racism results from the social caste
system that sustained, and was sustained by, slavery and racial
segregation. Although the laws that enforced this caste system
are no longer in place, its basic structure still stands to this
day.
Examples
FROM http://civilliberty.about.com


Opposing public school funding is not necessarily an act of
individual racism; one can certainly oppose public school
funding for valid, non-racist reasons. But to the extent that
opposing public school funding has a disproportionate and
detrimental effect on minority youth, it furthers the agenda of
institutional racism.
Most other positions contrary to the civil rights agenda-opposition to affirmative action, support for racial profiling,
and so forth--also have the (often unintended) effect of
sustaining institutional racism.

Black Americans were nearly four times as
likely as whites to be arrested on charges of
marijuana possession in 2010, even though the
two groups used the drug at similar rates,
according to new federal data.
The Tower– A good man
"His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray,
two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. "It isn't a soul in this green
world of God's that you can trust," she said. "And I don't count nobody out of
that, not nobody," she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.
"Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that's escaped?" asked the
grandmother.
"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attack this place right here," said the
woman. "If he hears about it being here, I wouldn't be none surprised to see
him. If he hears it's two cent in the cash register, I wouldn't be a tall surprised
if he . . ."
"That'll do," Red Sam said. "Go bring these people their Co'-Colas," and the
woman went off to get the rest of the order.
"A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible.
I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched.
Not no more."
The Misfit sneered slightly. "Nobody had
nothing I wanted," he said. "It was a head-doctor
at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill
my daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy
died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic
flu and I never had a thing to do with it. He was
buried in the Mount Hopewell Baptist
churchyard and you can go there and see for
yourself."


"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead,"
The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it.
He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He
said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away
everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's
nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you
got left the best way you can by killing somebody or
burning down his house or doing some other
meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said
and his voice had become almost a snarl.
Issues with faith
"Maybe He didn't raise the dead," the old lady mumbled, not
knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank
down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her.
 "I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I
wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his
fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I
would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of
been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now."
His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head
cleared for an instant.

Justice and Religion

"Jesus thrown everything off balance. It was the
same case with Him as with me except He hadn't
committed any crime and they could prove I had
committed one because they had the papers on me. Of
course," he said, "they never shown me my papers.
That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you
get you a signature and sign everything you do and
keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done
and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and
see do they match and in the end you'll have
something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call
myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make
what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through
in punishment."
Misfit Religion



If there is no justice in life (for the Misfit, his
Dad, Jesus)
And there is no justice after life (no God or
Heaven or hell)
What is the law of the world that is left?


Natural law which is…
So why does he shoot Grandma?
Children/Epiphany/
Redemption



Grandmother makes no connection between her
own and the African American boy in poverty
She finally makes a connection with the Misfit:
She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were
going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies..
Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his
glasses and began to clean them.“You're one of my own children
!" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit
sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times
through the chest
Style

Point of View
There was a secret:-panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the
truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family
silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never
found . . ."
Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe.
"No," he said.
The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that
the house she had remembered so vividly was not in
Georgia but in Tennessee.
THEME
• The main idea or underlying meaning of a
literary work. A theme may be stated or implied.
Theme differs from the subject or topic of a
literary work in that it involves a statement or
opinion about the topic. Not every literary work
has a theme. Themes may be major or minor. A
major theme is an idea the author returns to time
and again. It becomes one of the most important
ideas in the story. Minor themes are ideas that
may appear from time to time.
Theme vs. Subject
• It is important to recognize the difference
between the theme of a literary work and the
subject of a literary work.
• The subject is the topic on which an author has
chosen to write.
• The theme, however, makes some statement
about or expresses some opinion on that topic.
• For example, the subject of a story might be war
while the theme might be the idea that war is
useless.
Four ways in which an author can
express themes are as follows:
• NUMBER ONE
Themes are expressed and emphasized by
the way the author makes us feel.. By
sharing feelings of the main character
you also share the ideas that go through
his mind
Number TWO
• Themes are presented in thoughts and
conversations. Authors put words in their
character’s mouths only for good reasons.
One of these is to develop a story’s
themes. The things a person says are
much on their mind. Look for thoughts
that are repeated throughout the story.
Number THREE
• Themes are suggested through the
characters. The main character usually
illustrates the most important theme of the
story. A good way to get at this theme is to
ask yourself the question, what does the
main character learn in the course of the
story?
NUMBER FOUR
• The actions or events in the story are
used to suggest theme. People naturally
express ideas and feelings through their
actions. One thing authors think about is
what an action will "say". In other words,
how will the action express an idea or
theme?
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk.
Fight Club -Style
 Is this a reliable narrator/
 What is his tone? How do you know?
 What is his attitude toward you the
reader? (Does he think you are smart; the
enemy; the converted, etc.)
Themes
• Freudian – blaming parents
• Self Destruction
• “Reality” (What is it about?
How can we experience it more
intensely?)
• Know thyself
• Alienation from Culture, History
Violence (again)
• How is violence used by the
narrator (for what purpose)?
• How is it used by the author?
• This story is NOT about
fighting…what is it about?
Violence as redemptive (see
also…)
Hegemonic masculinity
• the normative ideal of masculinity to
which men are supposed to aim.
"Hegemonic Masculinity" is not
necessarily the most prevalent
masculinity, but rather the most
socially endorsed.
• Characteristics: aggressiveness,
strength, drive, ambition, lack of
emotion, and self-reliance.
Modern Man
•
•
•
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Emotional
Physically strong
Nurturing
Responsible for income
Restrained/makes sacrifices
Responsible for raising the
children