Evans 1 Charles Evans Prof. Lewis ENG 2250, 5:30PM (T/R) October 22, 2014 Midterm Part 1: The Creative Quiz 1. Three elements of a short story: Plot, theme, and character. Example of these three elements in my own work: Plot concerns itself with the dynamic between characters, their desires, their circumstances, and how they reconcile those desires to obtain what they want or deal with the inability to obtain what they desire. It does not just focus on the protagonist, but also on the antagonist. In my short piece, The Key to Happiness, the protagonist, Louis Belmont, struggles to deal with the loss of Jessica. He's searching for a meaning to life, what can make him happy, and why death seems to cause that meaning and happiness to halt and/or depreciate. What's the key to happiness Jessica? It's very short, but I feel Louis' dialogue with the deceased Jessica is important characterization. Louis is not asking the missionaries what the key to happiness and he's certainly not getting the answer from himself, but he is looking at Jessica, who's death is the catalyst for his existential crisis, for an explanation of this crisis. How can he heal? How can he be happy again? Almost as if he had the key, but in it's ephemeral nature it slipped away with the loss of his love.
Evans 2 Maybe the key is that there is no key and that we keep looking for it Here we reach a moral conclusion. Louis chooses, at least for the time being, to be nihilistic. He cannot find the answer, so the answer for him is the very drive he has to find the answer. It becomes a bit of a paradox, but I feel that reflects on the reality of our daily lives. Meaning is not a point to reach, but something we create as we move along; it isn't static. So Louis' resolution to continue to move on fits with the plot and now that the plot has been resolved (perhaps in a longer piece it would be an issue we revisit with a more concrete resolution), the story ends. Theme is closely tied with plot. Themes are elements of morality and human nature that the piece consistently presents and addresses. Again, in The Key to Happiness, the aforementioned passages deal heavily with the meaning of existence and how to cope with loss. In asking the picture of Jessica what the key is, Louis is recreating her in his mind to find an answer. In the sense of signification, Louis is working through an illusory lens to construct an ideological framework from which he can construct his identity. That is to say, Jessica has become a part of him and he is looking at those components of her for an answer. The themes in the story are heavily related to existential crisis, faith, meaning, death, disillusionment, and persistence. The last is character. Characters are the people concerned with the plot and develop the plot towards some sort of resolution. Characters also serve as symbols for themes in the story. In The Key to Happiness, there are 4 main characters: Louis, two Christian missionaries, and the deceased Jessica. Louis is our transitional vehicle and narrator that helps to guide us through the plot and themes. Like in the aforementioned passages, he poses philosophical questions and
Evans 3 answers related to the aforementioned themes. The two missionaries serve as a catalyst for Louis to explore these themes and are a representation of faith as an answer to existential quandary. By contrast, Louis is not a believer, but in his crisis is grasping for answers and so hears them out. One of the missionaries remains silent throughout the entire piece while the other does all the speaking. This was to show passive adherence to religious ideology and to show how Louis very much does not take that passive approach. The talkative missionary, on the other hand, is very vocal and concerned with proving to detractors his faith. In that way, he is showing his insecurity in his beliefs. 'God is salvation', he says. Louis, however, is not insecure, but is adapting his identity, and so is receptive, but not overly critical of the missionaries. "'Do you smoke?' [...] My eyes returned to the plump man. 'Would you like to?'. Unlike the missionaries, Louis asks them if they want to take a particular route instead of telling them they should do it. Jessica serves as a compromise or alternative to faith as an answer. I never got to ask her what the key to happiness was. No doubt she would have laughed at the simplicity of it. For the last year I had been asking those questions to myself because she wasn't around. She is a philosopher and represents the more whimsical approach to life. She also represents a loss of innocence and a fleeting image of happiness for Louis, who is seeking to get that back in his life. 2. List five forms of figurative language: idiom, metaphor, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia. Explain them in one or more of the in class readings. Idiom: Rinse and repeat for a matter of years. How to End Up by Jennifer A. Howard.
Evans 4 contains many idioms and they're often used to show the whimsical, fact of life attitude of the narrator about certain necessities in life that aren't particularly interesting or important, but are necessary for context and realism. Metaphor: The road home, they will remind you, is not always the way you came. Also found in How to End Up by Jennifer A. Howard, while there are not many metaphors in this short piece, the very few that are there elude to the fickle nature of life and that despite the changes that happen in our lives, we still end up where we need to be. Simile: this giant cloud that looked like a lightning factory. Found in Traveling Alone by Rob Carney. He uses a lot of figurative language in this piece to get the reader to really visualize and experience the events in the story he is telling. While he does not have many similes in the piece, this particular simile gets reinforced towards the end and becomes personified. Personification: this was where and how lightning was made, then shipped around the world to thunderstorms. Like down there in the middle, gods were working with hammers and anvils and bellows and wearing those helmets with a little strip of glass to look out of. Like a cloudy furnace. Found in Traveling Alone by Rob Carney. Plenty of similes in there, but works to reinforce the imagery of how spectacular this large storm cloud appears to the narrator. Really draws up the images the narrator was probably visualizing while witnessing this spectacular natural event. Onomatopoeia: so these areas would suddenly flash in the middle... then somewhere else... then pmm pmm pmm pmm pmm all in a row. Found in Traveling Alone by Rob Carney. Describes the lightning flashes inside the cloud that, oddly, he can't hear, but describes the
Evans 5 lighting effect adequately. It's the only onomatopoeia in the piece, but it really helped me to visualize the effect the narrator was witnessing, which helped to reinforce the other imagery used in the piece. 3. Craft examples of dialogue (direct, indirect, stage directions, internal dialogue/monologue). Direct: Mary, I'm an ethical slut. Indirect: Jane said she was an ethical slut. I didn't believe her. Stage Directions: Jane: I'm not sleazy. [Jane glances away from Mary] I'm more like an ethical slut. Internal dialogue/monologue: I can't believe Mary thinks I'm sleazy! I don't just sleep around... it's more ethical than that. 4. Three major elements for creative nonfiction: Scene, Summary/Exposition, Musing Scene, exposition, and musing are critical to creative nonfiction. Scene allows the reader to get a full sense of the context and environment that the narrator is working in. Exposition allows for summary of less explicit events and also clears up any relevant materials that isn't directly associated with the work. Musing is the meat of most good creative nonfiction works. Nearly all creative nonfiction pieces are thematic recollections of past experiences that serve to expose specific themes, morals, lessons, and historical struggles. In Time and Distance Overcome by Eula Biss, the scene was set over many different
Evans 6 places in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Initially this was to explain the invention of the telephone and the rise of telephone poles all over the country. The intention of the telephone was to connect people. I feel this was done to evoke a sense of irony when we find out later in the piece that the narrator intends to discuss how the telephone poles were used to lynch people, which is very much against the concept of bringing people together. Much like the irony in the setting, the beginning of the story is a summary of the invention of the telephone and how it became integrated into our society, even at the behest of many cities that were resistant to change. Again, that purpose seemed to serve as an irony, and there is a deep contrast between the public outcry against the telephone poles being erected in their cities and the often times public support of the brutal lynchings using the very same poles. The musing in Time and Distance Overcome is very short, but really seems to be at the heart of the narrator's message. The narrator discusses how, when he was young, he thought that the telephone wires and poles were beautiful and amazing things and now that he is older, the poles do not look the same to him. The musing helps to tie together his two conflicting viewpoints. On one end, Bell's invention was a wonderful thing for a lot of people and was intended to be a great thing, much like the narrators initial perspective on the poles. On the other end however, there were the lynchings and all manner of awful things associated with the rise of telephone poles and so he sees they are now tainted by his knowledge of the past. He does qualify, at least, that nothing remains unrepentant. 5. Five forms of Point of View (POV): 1 st person, 2 nd person, 3 rd person, omniscient narrator, single vision, and multiple vision.
Evans 7 There are multiple uses for each POV. 1 st person narration brings us very close to the narrator, their thoughts, perspectives, and emotions. Unlike the other POVs, we get a front row seat behind the eyes of the narrator. We experience things as they experience them. We connect to the narrator in a very personal way. While this is great for traditional narrative in getting us to relate deeply to the narrator, 1 st person narrative can also be useful for plot twists when we find out that the narrator is actually unreliable and that the information we've been fed, while true, is misleading and/or warped. 2 nd person narration is not used too often. It's more concerned with guiding the reader through the story as if they were performing the actions themselves (perhaps with the intention of having a specific reader instead of a general audience). The most often time I see 2 nd person narrative is in the choose your own adventure style books. In that way, you are the person going on the adventure and as you make decisions, you can alter the outcome of the story. 3 rd person narrative is widely used in the contemporary novel. It puts up some distance between the reader and the characters. It allows for a great degree of flexibility in how the events in a story are told. It's very easy to switch between characters in 3 rd person. It also allows for the reader to connect to the narrator without the narrator being directly involved in the story. We relate to their account of the details, but are not locked into a single perspective or interpretation of the events in the story. 1 st and 3 rd person allow for a several degrees of play, namely single vision and multiple vision. Single vision is the typical for 1 st person POV, where the main character is the focus for the entire story. It is also seen in 3 rd person where the narrator follows the main character exclusively and does not wander too far away from that character. We're allowed to see the
Evans 8 events unfold from a singular perspective, but many more liberties on information in the story than 1 st person allows for. Multiple vision is where the focus of the POV changes to a new vantage point. In the case of 1 st person, we gain a new narrator from which we get to explore the story. For example, perhaps in a 1 st person love story we may have alternating chapters from the perspectives of each person involved in the relationship and how they're drawn together. In 3 rd person it is very much the same as with 1 st person multiple, but again it allows for a lot more flexibility in the perspective around the main character and we can gain details that we may not be able to get if we were in 1 st person. For example, if we were to read a 3 rd person multiple of Romeo and Juliet, we may come to understand that Juliet was not really dead when Romeo found her, and so much like the drama, we relate to the situational irony as it is exposed without having to express that separately from Juliet's perspective. Lastly, omniscience is concerned with 3 rd person. The narrator knows everything about the goings on in the story and clues us in on the relevant facts. They're free to wander around the world, plot, and characters as they deem important to the story. This does not mean they tell use everything, however, and can make for great unreliable narrators by abusing our trust in their omniscience. 6. Choose 3 forms of creative nonfiction that you want to try out: Humor essay, Literary Journalism, and Personal Essay. I think the humor essay is naturally suited to my talents. I tend to be a bit self-deprecating and I get into all sorts of odd and hysterical situations. There's a sort of whimsical I'm only human nature to that sort of thing and I think people can relate to that well and laugh at how
Evans 9 true some of those experiences are. Literary journalism would just be interesting to me. I love to do research on various topics, particularly history. I also like to tie those things back to my own experiences. Lastly, the personal essay would be fun just to get on the page and hit on some things. Really bleed my thoughts, opinions, and experiences on the page. We didn't read this, but rather listened to it, but Carlson's What We Were Trying To Do on This American Life was an excellent example of both literary journalism and a humor essay. It took a historical concept, was factually accurate though it took some liberties on the dialogue, and was just down-right funny. I don't recall reading any personal essays in class. 7. Truth vs. Emotional Truth The truth are the events that actually happened. They can be based on research of historical events, accounts from others who were there, etc.. The emotional truth is your spin on it. There's always going to be a degree of uncertainty and factual inaccuracy because we tend to reinvent our memories. We remember the emotions though and so doing our best to represent those emotions whilst making it clear in the writing that there is some uncertainty helps to deliver your message without coming off as being dishonest, dramatic, or misleading. Emotional truth is from our own perspective and so it's hard to really get that wrong as long as the facts that surround it are true. I think the best representation of truth vs. emotional truth is How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O'Brien. It very specifically deals with the horrific events of the Vietnam War, but explicates various versions that change based on the actual truth, the emotional truth, and the lies
we tell to get at the truth. Evans 10