Literature Analysis #5
Kafka on the Shore
By: Haruki Murakami
2. I feel like the theme is desire. The desire to what you want and learn for yourself. Kafka does this throughout the whole novel repeatedly. Even with other important characters they all do what they desire to do despite the outcome or what the odds are saying against it.
3. The author of this novel seems to me to have a sort of assertive tone as he lays out his story for the reader.
Quotes:
"From now on - no matter what - you've got to be the world's toughest fifteen-year-old. That's the only way you're going to survive."
The Boy Named Crow, p. 5
"Naturally, I have zero friends. I've built a wall around myself, never letting anybody inside and trying not to venture outside myself. Who could like somebody like that? They all keep an eye on me, from a distance. They might hate me, or even be afraid of me, but I'm just glad they don't bother me."
Chapter 1, p. 9
"What I think is this: you should give up looking for lost cats and start searching for the other half of your shadow."
Nakata tugged a few times at the bill of his hat in his hands. "To tell the truth, Nakata's had that feeling before. That my shadow is weak. Other people might not notice, but I do."
Chapter 6, p. 52
4. Literary techniques that bettered my understanding of the purpose, theme and tone were diction, syntax, symbolism, and style.
Diction: The authors word choice helped me understand the tone a lot better because he used charged adjectives, very descriptive and to the point in the writing.
“But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong. I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now.”
Syntax: The way he wrote his sentences and how they all had a purpose allowed me to enjoy the book as well as understand it. He used long descriptive sentences.
“The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.”
Symbolism: symbolism was used a lot in the novel. One major symbol that helped me understand the purpose of the novel was the crow. it symbolized Kafka's inner struggles and how hard things were going for him at this time.
Style: The authors style was unique and helped me get a feel for the writing and the meaning. The author alternates chapters with different stories every even and odd chapters. This was interesting and the two characters were so complex that it allowed me to stay completely interested in his point in the end of the novel.
Literature Analysis #4
Brave New World
by: Aldous Huxley
1. Wuthering Heights is essentially a love story about Heathcliff, a mysterious man. Heathcliff ends up falling for a girl named Catherine whom he can't have due to his social status, which is very important to people in this time. He was an orphan, but was adopted into the Earnshaw family. Catherine, Heathcliff's love, ends up dying before he gets a chance to be with her and it isn't until death when they are able to be united. It is almost like a tragic love story with many twist and revengeful turns along the way.
2. The theme of Wuthering Heights is the power of love. Love can cause you to make irrational decisions and go against the standards of society. The overwhelming love story that took place in the novel is what drew me in as a reader and kept me hooked throughout the entire, twisted story.
3. Bronte's tone is very ominous or dark with a strange sense of romance. The love between Heathcliff seems doomed at times, but as the novel progresses you see that the author tried to put a little hope in the idea of their romance. Examples of this type of tone are, " I cannot love thee; thou 'rt worse than thy brother.", " If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it." and " He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease himself!".
4. Imagery, symbolism, diction, tone, and genre all helped me understand the theme of the novel. Bronte used much imagery that allowed me to picture the novel in my head as I read. The genre of story, being gothic and romantic also helped me understand and become more intrigued because of the constant wonder of what was to come next.
-"If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day. " (tone)
-"He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly." (imagery)
-"Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies."
4. Literary elements that portrayed the tone and theme were not very hard to spot through out the novel. The symbols were the first thing that i recognized with in the novel, one being the bull fighting. The fighting of the bulls symbolized that some kind of drama was going to show up with Jake and his friends, whether it be a casual argument or a controversy about Brett. Another two literary techniques I saw in the novel that led me into what the authors tone was through diction and syntax. Hemingway would right with very sophisticated language with a lot of detail and he would make very wise, but somewhat whimsical statements. For example, "Caffeine puts a man on his horse and a woman in his grave." The structure of the sentences were kind of condensed which also led to the depressing or conservative tone. Another literary technique that I could identify was that the author used a lot of comparison within his writing, especially those that portray women as almost scandalous. "And with them was Brett. I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure." The last literary technique I saw with the novel is the allusions that are seen such as the references to greek mythology.
by: Aldous Huxley
1. The plot of this novel starts with the introduction of society in a new way. A place where drugs are praised, sex is everywhere and basically things "after ford" are the complete opposite of what we know today. Human life has been almost entirely industrialized — controlled by a few people at the top of a World State.The first scene, offering a tour of a lab where human beings are created and conditioned according to the society's strict caste system, establishes the antiseptic tone and the theme of dehumanized life. The natural processes of birth, aging, and death represent horrors in this world.Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus (or high-caste) psychologist, emerges as the single discontented person in a world where material comfort and physical pleasure — provided by the drug soma and recreational sex — are the only concerns. Scorned by women, Bernard nevertheless manages to engage the attention of Lenina Crowne, a "pneumatic" beauty who agrees to spend a vacation week with him at the remote Savage Reservation in New Mexico, a place far from the controlled, technological world of London.In the Savage Reservation with Lenina, Bernard meets a woman from London who gave birth to a son about 20 years before. Seeing his opportunity to gain power over the D.H.C. — the father of the child — Bernard brings Linda and John back to London and presents them publicly to the D.H.C., who is about to banish Bernard. Shocked and humiliated by the proof of his horrifying connection with natural birth, the D.H.C. flees in terror. Once a social outcast, Bernard now enjoys great success, because of his association with the new celebrity — John, called "the Savage."Reared on the traditional ways of the Reservation and an old volume of the poetry of Shakespeare, John finds London strange, confusing, and finally repellent. His quotation of Miranda's line from The Tempest— "O brave new world / That has such people in it" — at first expresses his awe of the "Other Place" his mother told him of as a child. But the quotation becomes ironic as John becomes more and more disgusted by the recreational sex, soma, and identical human beings of London.The three face the judgment of World Controller Mustapha Mond, who acknowledges the flaws of this brave new world, but pronounces the loss of freedom and individuality a small price to pay for stability. Mond banishes Bernard and Helmholtz to the Falkland Islands and rules that John must stay in London. Lenina's attempted seduction provokes John's anger and violence, and, later, the death of Linda further arouses his fury. At last, John's attempt to keep a crowd of Deltas from their ration of soma results in a riot and his arrest, along with Bernard and Helmholtz Watson, an "emotional engineer" who wishes to be a poet. When his two friends leave for their exile, John determines to make a retreat for himself in a remote, secluded lighthouse outside the city. There he tries to purify himself of civilization with ritual whippings and vomiting. Drawn by the spectacle of his wild penances, reporters and crowds press in on John, who becomes a public curiosity — a kind of human animal in a zoo. When Lenina appears in the crowd, John furiously attacks her with the whip. John's frenzy inflames the crowd, and, in accordance with their social training, the violence turns into a sexual orgy, with John drawn in more or less unwillingly. The next day, when John awakes from the effects of the soma, he realizes in horror what he has done. The novel closes on an image of John's body, hanging lifeless from a wooden beam in his lighthouse retreat.
2. The theme of "Brave New World" is that of Freedom and Confinement, seen as one. The citizens of Brave New World's futuristic society are in a constant state of imprisonment. But because they've been conditioned to love their servitude, no one seems to have any problem with this. Well, almost no one. As one character so deftly points out, being happy all the time is its own sort of prison; being a human is about having the right to be unhappy. The prison bars are made of brainwashing sayings, of drugs and promiscuity, and not of iron or steel. Because confinement happens in the mind, so too is freedom a mental state.
3. The author's tone in "Brave New World" is very serious. The authors tone was serious. It had a sort of humor to it, but overall the idea of the novel was almost depressing. He spoke very straight forward and made it seem like things were horrible, the promiscuous people, the sex, the drugs all made it clear that the authors tone was a very serious one. The tone was also very satirical, do to the fact that it is like our society backwards. Also because of how he uses "ford" in place of a god or christ figure.
4. Five literary elements I was able to see in this novel are diction/ syntax, satire, setting, symbols, and imagery.
Diction/ syntax: Example, "Just to give you a general idea," he would explain to them. For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently – though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society." The author writes colloquial, but in a sophisticated manner. You can tell he wants to appeal to many readers, but at the same time he wants to portray what's going on in a very serious way.
Satire: Brave New World is a satire because it is today's society, backwards. Sex is glorified and celebrated, and monogamy, where in today's society is seen as the "best" way, is laughed at and tossed aside. Another satire in the book is the class and race system being simplified into colors of clothes, ("I hate khaki"), I personally think that this is hilarious, simplifying it so a moron can understand it. Another satire is the use of drugs. Throughout the book the characters indulger (or over-indulge) in the taking of "soma", which takes them on a relaxing high of some sort that is referred to as a "soma holiday". This is satire because in today's society drug use is strongly frowned upon, wherein Brave New World, not using the drug is frowned upon and considered not "normal". Yet another satirical bit in Brave New World is the people that live on the reservation in New Mexico, and how they do things much in the way that we do today, and they are referred to as "savages" and primitive beings. One of the things that disgusts people of the New World the most is natural child birth, opposed to the popular "jar birth" of the New World. Those are four of the biggest satires on modern society in the book. Everything is backwards.
Setting: England, Savage Reservation in New Mexico. 2540 a.d., referred to in the novel as 632 years, "After Ford", meaning 632 after the first model T car was produced. The setting gives the novel suspense because it's hot and dangerous in the reservation. Also it allows the reader to have an imagination because this is all happening so far in the future.
Symbols: The drug soma is a symbol of the use of instant gratification to control the World State’s populace. It is also a symbol of the powerful influence of science and technology on society.
Imagery: There is use of "animal imagery", the author uses unique description of animals and their actions to convey a point with in the novel for example, "straight from the horses mouth."
Literature Analysis #3
Wuthering Heights
By: Emily Bronte
1. Wuthering Heights is essentially a love story about Heathcliff, a mysterious man. Heathcliff ends up falling for a girl named Catherine whom he can't have due to his social status, which is very important to people in this time. He was an orphan, but was adopted into the Earnshaw family. Catherine, Heathcliff's love, ends up dying before he gets a chance to be with her and it isn't until death when they are able to be united. It is almost like a tragic love story with many twist and revengeful turns along the way.
2. The theme of Wuthering Heights is the power of love. Love can cause you to make irrational decisions and go against the standards of society. The overwhelming love story that took place in the novel is what drew me in as a reader and kept me hooked throughout the entire, twisted story.
3. Bronte's tone is very ominous or dark with a strange sense of romance. The love between Heathcliff seems doomed at times, but as the novel progresses you see that the author tried to put a little hope in the idea of their romance. Examples of this type of tone are, " I cannot love thee; thou 'rt worse than thy brother.", " If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it." and " He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease himself!".
4. Imagery, symbolism, diction, tone, and genre all helped me understand the theme of the novel. Bronte used much imagery that allowed me to picture the novel in my head as I read. The genre of story, being gothic and romantic also helped me understand and become more intrigued because of the constant wonder of what was to come next.
-"If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day. " (tone)
-"He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly." (imagery)
-"Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies."
Literature Analysis #2
Literature Analysis on "The Sun Also Rises"
1. Jake Barnes and his friends live in the contreversial, self-indulgent world of post-World War I Paris. There, they occasionally work, but spend most of their time partying, drinking, and arguing. From Jake’s perspective, we meet the cast of characters that populates his story: the most important among them are Robert Cohn who is down-on-his-luck, a Princeton grad and unsuccessful writer. We are also introduced to Lady Brett Ashley, an exciting, beautiful, and unpredictable British divorcee. Although Jake and Brett are actually in love, they aren’t together, presumably because a mysterious war wound has rendered Jake impotent. Cohn falls in love with Brett as well and, despite the fact that she’s not terribly impressed with him, she secretly goes on a trip with him to San Sebastian. Cohn is smitten, truly, madly, deeply in love. Unfortunately for Cohn (and for everyone, for that matter), Brett is engaged to a wealthy, charming, and drunkard man named Mike. Jake’s other friend Bill returns to Paris from a trip and a plan is derived, everyone agrees to go to Spain for some fishing and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. On their fishing trip, Bill and Jake have a splendid time with each other, but the relaxation quickly comes to an end. They return to civilization and meet up with Brett, Mike, and Cohn in Pamplona for a weeklong activities of bullfights, alcohol, and high drama. Jake has a true passion for bullfighting, but everyone else is simply there to have a good time. Brett begins a rather scandalous affair with a young bull-fighter, Pedro Romero. Jake feels terrible for many reasons one being the fear that he has corrupted Romero in some way by introducing him to Brett. Cohn’s infatuation with Brett leads to arguments with everyone and, finally, he beats the unfortunate Romero to a bloody pulp. As the fiesta winds down, everyone leaves Pamplona in various states of anxiety, depression and frustration. Jake heads to San Sebastian, where he intends to be alone for a while. Unfortunately, desperate telegrams from Brett arrive immediately. He goes to her in Madrid, where she is alone, having sent Romero away. For the first time, we see Brett truly vulnerable, afraid, and guilty. The future looks just as bad, Jake and Brett agree again that, even though they love each other, they can’t be together.
2. The main theme I recognized in the novel was that of love. This is the best theme that i could find because of Brett. Everyone is so infatuated with her and multiple people "fall in love" with her. Yes, love is corrupted in the novel and usually triggered with the idea of sex behind it, but although this is so I still feel as if the whole them revolves around love because even the environment is romanticized; it's in Paris.
3. The tone of the novel is sort of somber, and detached from reality.
3. The tone of the novel is sort of somber, and detached from reality.
Examples of this are through these three quotes:
•"I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together"
•"I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless."
•"'Listen, Jake,' he leaned forward on the bar. "Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?"
All of these examples show how the author has an odd kind of negative outlook on life, which makes him tone almost depressing.
4. Literary elements that portrayed the tone and theme were not very hard to spot through out the novel. The symbols were the first thing that i recognized with in the novel, one being the bull fighting. The fighting of the bulls symbolized that some kind of drama was going to show up with Jake and his friends, whether it be a casual argument or a controversy about Brett. Another two literary techniques I saw in the novel that led me into what the authors tone was through diction and syntax. Hemingway would right with very sophisticated language with a lot of detail and he would make very wise, but somewhat whimsical statements. For example, "Caffeine puts a man on his horse and a woman in his grave." The structure of the sentences were kind of condensed which also led to the depressing or conservative tone. Another literary technique that I could identify was that the author used a lot of comparison within his writing, especially those that portray women as almost scandalous. "And with them was Brett. I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure." The last literary technique I saw with the novel is the allusions that are seen such as the references to greek mythology.
Literature Analysis #1
All the Pretty Horses
1. This novel consists of three guys' journeys from the United States into through the Mexican border. The novel has three main characters John Grady Cole, who runs away with his friend Rawlins on horse back, at the age of sixteen after his grandfather passes away. Another character is Jimmy Belvins whom the other two boys meet along the way. The novels goes on to talk about the boys struggles in Mexico along with a twist of a love story in it. In the end all the boys split up through out all their difficulties and John Grady finds himself with out a home or any sort of family.
2. The theme of the novel is the strive for independence and freedom in ones' own mind. Another theme could be coming of age because these were young boys who didn't know what the world held for them and they were rudely awakened in Mexico.
3. The author's tone is sort of hopeless. An example of this tone from McCarthy is, "The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him." Another example of the hopeless tone shown in the novel is, "The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief." I thought this was an example of this tone because not many people think that they have a bond with grief, that's sort of a depressing statement. The last example from the text that i found was, "Those whom life does not cure death will."
4. Literary elements that i found in the novel that helped me better understand it were diction, imagery, description, tone, and the use of metaphors. In the novel the description McCarthy used really put me right there with John Grady especially when he says, "They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pasture-land. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The light fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing." This whole passage let me grasp the way the author writes in a completely different way than usual. The way he wrote allowed me to stay focused on the novel. The tone especially helped understand the theme in the end. With in the novel if the author would have written in a joyful tone I would never have grasped the true struggle that the three boys; John Grady, Jimmy Belvins, and Rawlins, had gone through in Mexico. When they are abused in jail the way McCarthy tells the torture being done really sets the tone perfectly for the reader to interpret the theme accurately.
1. This novel consists of three guys' journeys from the United States into through the Mexican border. The novel has three main characters John Grady Cole, who runs away with his friend Rawlins on horse back, at the age of sixteen after his grandfather passes away. Another character is Jimmy Belvins whom the other two boys meet along the way. The novels goes on to talk about the boys struggles in Mexico along with a twist of a love story in it. In the end all the boys split up through out all their difficulties and John Grady finds himself with out a home or any sort of family.
2. The theme of the novel is the strive for independence and freedom in ones' own mind. Another theme could be coming of age because these were young boys who didn't know what the world held for them and they were rudely awakened in Mexico.
3. The author's tone is sort of hopeless. An example of this tone from McCarthy is, "The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him." Another example of the hopeless tone shown in the novel is, "The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief." I thought this was an example of this tone because not many people think that they have a bond with grief, that's sort of a depressing statement. The last example from the text that i found was, "Those whom life does not cure death will."
4. Literary elements that i found in the novel that helped me better understand it were diction, imagery, description, tone, and the use of metaphors. In the novel the description McCarthy used really put me right there with John Grady especially when he says, "They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pasture-land. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The light fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing." This whole passage let me grasp the way the author writes in a completely different way than usual. The way he wrote allowed me to stay focused on the novel. The tone especially helped understand the theme in the end. With in the novel if the author would have written in a joyful tone I would never have grasped the true struggle that the three boys; John Grady, Jimmy Belvins, and Rawlins, had gone through in Mexico. When they are abused in jail the way McCarthy tells the torture being done really sets the tone perfectly for the reader to interpret the theme accurately.
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