The Norton Introduction to Literature Week 6

The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket

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.