Yasunari Kawabata's " The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket" is very profound, using a lot of euphemisms and symbols suggested in its economic writing. At first glance, it seems simple enough, until you realize that it goes on a deeper level. The author also illustrates the love for Japanese tradition - that of making lanterns. The author's use of euphemism and symbolism is shown at once in the opening paragraphs. The narrator saw a group of children on an insect chase with varicolored lanterns. There were crimson, pink, indigo, green, purple, yellow and one that glowed with five colors at once. This implies that there are different kinds of people. This showed the different characteristics of the children carrying the lanterns. The ones who were carrying red lanterns have the tendency to lean towards having intense emotions. Contradicting it is pink, which shows gentle emotions. Yellow shows wisdom and intellect. Green has been known for social stability and even greediness. Indigo is of dignity and high aspirations and violet is of noble spiritual aspirations, honor, spirituality and self-esteem. While the one carrying the lantern that glowed with five colors showed well - roundedness of a person and the capability to balance different traits within oneself. The story revolves around searching for one's identity and the reluctance to part with the innocence of childhood “ and with it the selfishness of a child that when true love comes, one is unable to appreciate it. The narrator itself illustrated how he is reluctant to leave his childhood when he approached the upper school and turning right as not to leave the playground behind. The upper school showed how he is transcending childhood but he doesn't want to part with it yet. The white board fence of the school symbolizes innocence and the playground is to childhood. The narrator's reluctance is further illustrated with his walk.
Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成 Kawabata Yasunari, 11 June 1899 – 16 April 1972) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.
The Bluest Eyes
The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by American author Toni Morrison. It is Morrison's first novel and was written while she was teaching at Howard University and raising her two sons on her own. The story is about a year in the life of a young black girl named Pecola who develops an inferiority complex due to her eye color and skin appearance. It is set in Lorain, Ohio, against the backdrop of America's Midwest during the years following the Great Depression. The point of view switches between the perspective of Claudia MacTeer, as a child and as an adult, and a third-person omniscient viewpoint. Because of the controversial nature of the book, which deals with racism, incest, and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban it from schools and libraries.
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931) is an American novelist, editor, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), and Beloved (1987).
American Dream The American Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal" with the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The Pursuit of Happyness is a 2006 American biographical drama film based on entrepreneur Chris Gardner's nearly one-year struggle being homeless.
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. Irony Irony (from Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία , meaning "dissimulation, feigned ignorance"), in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case. Irony may be divided into categories such as verbal, dramatic, and situational. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection. Element of fiction The six major elements of fiction are character, plot, point of view, setting, style, and theme. 1. Character -- A figure in a literary work (personality, gender, age, etc). E. M. Forester makes a distinction between flat and round characters. Flat characters are types or caricatures defined by a single idea of quality, whereas round characters have the three-dimensional complexity of real people. 2. Plot –- the major events that move the action in a narrative. It is the sequence of major events in a story, usually in a cause-effect relation. 3. Point of View -- the vantage point from which a narrative is told. A narrative is typically told from a first-person or third-person point of view. In a narrative told from a first-person perspective, the author tells the story through a character who refers to himself or herself as "I." Third –person narratives come in two types: omniscient and limited. An author taking an omniscient point of view assumes the vantage point of an all-knowing narrator able not only to recount the action thoroughly and reliably but also to enter the mind of any character in the work or any time in order to reveal his or her thoughts, feelings, and beliefs directly to the reader. An author using the limited point of view recounts the story through the eyes of a single character (or occasionally more than one, but not all or the narrator would be an omniscient narrator). 4. Setting –- That combination of place, historical time, and social milieu that provides the general background for the characters and plot of a literary work. The general setting of a work may differ from the specific setting of an individual scene or event. 5.Style -- The author’s type of diction (choice of words), syntax (arrangement of words), and other linguistic features of a work. 6.Theme(s) -- The central and dominating idea (or ideas) in a literary work. The term also indicates a message or moral implicit in any work of art.
"The Lady with the Dog" is a short story by Anton Chekhov first published in 1899. It tells the story of an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a young lady he meets while vacationing in Yalta. The story comprises four parts: part I describes the initial meeting in Yalta, part II the consummation of the affair and the remaining time in Yalta, part III Gurov's return to Moscow and his visit to Anna's town, and part IV Anna's visits to Moscow. Vladimir Nabokov declared that it was one of the greatest short stories ever written.
Plot
Dmitri Gurov is a Moscow bank worker, married with a daughter and two sons. Unhappy in his marriage, he is frequently unfaithful and considers women to be of "a lower race". While vacationing in Yalta, he sees a young lady walking along the seafront with her small dog, and endeavors to make her acquaintance. The lady, Anna Sergeyevna, is also vacationing, while her husband remains at home in an unnamed provincial town. They are soon engaged in an affair, and spend most of their time together walking and taking drives to nearby Oreanda. Though she is expecting her husband to come to Yalta, he eventually sends for her to come home, saying that something is wrong with his eyes. Gurov sees her off at the station.
Returning to Moscow and his daily routine, working by day and clubbing by night, Gurov expects to soon forget young Anna but finds he is haunted by her memory. On the ruse of going to St. Petersburg to take care of some business, he sets off to her town to find her. Learning the location of the family’s residence from a hotel porter, he finds the house, only to realize that it would be futile to intrude. In despair, he reasons that Anna has probably forgotten him and found someone else, and heads back to his hotel for a long nap.
In the evening, he remembers having seen a sign earlier promoting a performance of The Geisha. Reasoning that Anna and her husband may attend the first performance, he goes to the theater. The couple enters and he watches intently. When the husband goes out for a smoke during the first interval, Gurov greets Anna, who is bewildered and runs from him. After following her through the theater, he confronts her and she confides that she has been thinking of him constantly. Frightened, she begs him to leave and promises to come to see him in Moscow.
She makes excuses to come to Moscow, telling her husband that she is going there to see a doctor, which he "believes and does not believe". Gurov realizes that for the first time in his life he has actually fallen in love, and wonders how they can continue. While they talk of finding a plan, the story ends without a resolution.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Chekhov seated at a deskAnton Pavlovich Chekhov ( 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short story writer who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theater. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was a political theorist, American statesman, and served as the fourth President of the United States (1809–17). He is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Madison inherited his plantation Montpelier in Virginia and owned hundreds of slaves during his lifetime. He served as both a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and as a member of the Continental Congress prior to the Constitutional Convention. After the Convention, he became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify it, both nationally and in Virginia. His collaboration with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay produced The Federalist Papers, among the most important treatises in support of the Constitution. Madison changed his political views during his life. During deliberations on the constitution, he favored a strong national government, but later preferred stronger state governments, before settling between the two extremes late in his life.
WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) is an informal, sometimes disparaging term for a group of high-status and influential White Americans of English Protestant ancestry. The term applies to a group who control disproportionate financial, political and social power in the United States. It describes a group whose family education, elite connections, status and wealth allow them a degree of opportunity held by few others.
Scholars agree that the group's influence has waned since the end of World War II, with the growing influence of other ethnic groups in the United States. The term is also used in Australia and Canada for similar elites. The term is occasionally used by sociologists to include all Americans of North European ancestry regardless of their class or power. People rarely call themselves WASPs, except humorously. The acronym is typically used by non-WASPs.
Narration
Narration is the use of—or the particularly chosen methodology or process (also called the narrative mode) of using—a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience.Narration encompasses a set of techniques through which the creator of the story presents their story, including:
Narrative point of view: the perspective (or type of personal or non-personal "lens") through which a story is communicated
Narrative voice: the format (or type presentational form) through which a story is communicated
Narrative time: the placement of the story's time-frame in the past, the present, or the future
A narrator is a personal character or a non-personal voice that the creator of the story develops to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot. The narrator may be a voice devised by the author as an anonymous, non-personal, or stand-alone entity; as the author herself/himself as a character; or as some other fictional or non-fictional character appearing and participating within their own story. The narrator is considered participant if he/she is a character within the story, and non-participant if he/she is an implied character or an omniscient or semi-omniscient being or voice that merely relates the story to the audience without being involved in the actual events. Some stories have multiple narrators to illustrate the storylines of various characters at the same, similar, or different times, thus allowing a more complex, non-singular point of view.
Narration encompasses not only who tells the story, but also how the story is told (for example, by using stream of consciousness or unreliable narration). In traditional literary narratives (such as novels, short stories, and memoirs), narration is a required story element; in other types of (chiefly non-literary) narratives, such as plays, television shows, video games, and films, narration is merely optional.
3C: Computer + Communication + Consumer Electronics
The Reader
"The Reader" opens in post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair.
Michael discovers that Hanna loves being read to and their physical relationship deepens. Hanna is enthralled as Michael reads to her from "The Odyssey," "Huck Finn," and "The Lady with the Little Dog." Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously disappears one day and Michael is left confused and heartbroken.
Eight years later, while Michael is a law student observing the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to find Hanna back in his life this time as a defendant in the courtroom. As Hanna's past is revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives.
"The Reader" is a haunting story about truth and reconciliation, about how one generation comes to terms with the crimes of another.
Literacy
Literacy is traditionally understood as the ability to read and write. The term's meaning has been expanded to include the ability to use language, numbers, images and other means to understand and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture.The concept of literacy is expanding in OECD countries to include skills to access knowledge through technology and ability to assess complex contexts.
The key to all literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and culminates in the deep understanding of text. Reading development involves a range of complex language underpinnings including awareness of speech sounds (phonology), spelling patterns (orthography), word meaning (semantics), grammar (syntax) and patterns of word formation (morphology), all of which provide a necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension.
Alice Ann Munro (born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer and Nobel Prize winner. Munro's work has been described as having revolutionized the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade.
Boys and Girls
"Boys and Girls" was first published in 1968 in The Montrealer, before it was collected with fourteen other stories and published in Alice Munro's first edition of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968). The story, narrated by a young girl, details the time in her life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind and realizes that to be a "girl" is to be, eventually, a woman. The child begins to understand that being socially typed entails a host of serious implications. Thus becoming a "girl" on the way to womanhood is a time fraught with difficulties for the young protagonist because she senses that women are considered the social inferiors of men. Initially, she tries to prevent this from occurring by resisting her parents' and grandparents' attempts to train her in the likes, habits, behavior, and work of women. This resistance, however, proves to be useless. The girl ends the story clearly socially positioned as a girl, something which she apprehends with some trepidation. The story is thus a feminist parable of sorts, where a girl bucks against a future that will prevent her from doing, socially, whatever she might please. Although most of Munro's work does not have such clear and cogent feminist interest, this story eloquently attests to how women worked during this century to change their social position substantially.
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
Most of his fictional works – initially published as serials in magazines – were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy's Wessex is based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom and eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England.
Tess of the d Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891 and in book form in 1892. Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's fictional masterpiece, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, 2 miles (3 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. Stonehenge's ring of standing stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure, the last completed of Thomas Hardy's novels, began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. Its protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man, a stonemason, who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion and marriage.
Nelle Harper Le
e
Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016), better known by her pen name Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature.
The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children. The novel was inspired by racist attitudes in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.
To kill a Mokingbird
Cover of the book showing title in white letters against a black background in a banner above a painting of a portion of a tree against a red backgroundTo Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explains the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."
As a Southern Gothic novel and a Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to campaigns for removal from public classrooms, often challenged for its use of racial epithets.
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. A controversial novel originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year with total sales of more than 65 million books. The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel also deals with complex issues of identity, belonging, loss, and connection.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream, a comedy believed to have been written by William Shakespeare between 1590 and 1597, portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors (the mechanicals) who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.
Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, where it was listed as a comedy, the play's first recorded performance occurred in 1604. The play's main themes include justice, "mortality and mercy in Vienna," and the dichotomy between corruption and purity: "some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." Mercy and virtue predominate, since the play does not end tragically.
Measure for Measure is often called one of Shakespeare's problem plays. It was, and continues to be, classified as comedy, though its tone and setting defy those expectations.
Danny boy
"Danny Boy" is a ballad written by English songwriter Frederic Weatherly and usually set to the Irish tune of the "Londonderry Air". It is most closely associated with Irish communities.
