Analysis Of John Fowles 's The Magus

How does the context of the novel affect the way this value or idea is represented

Through characterisation, the author is able to express the main idea of disempowerment and also allowing us as readers to feel discontented and upset towards the main character.

It was one week from Della's 30th birthday and Jim didn't have enough money to

The obsession with social class impacts peoples lives greatly. You do not have a say what social class you are born into, unfortunately that class transcends into every aspect of your life, no matter how hard you try to rid it. In The Great Gatsby, social class is clearly shown between the lives of the families in East Egg, to the families living in West Egg. There is barely a difference in lifestyles besides the type of money each family has required, whether it is old money or new money. “One things sure and nothings surer. The rich get richer and the poor get children” (Fitzgerald. 5). There is really no way to erase your past or where you came from; when you are poor, you are poor,

authors stories can have a different meaning than what the author had intended for it to have. In

The most significant part of the entire text is that most of the readers will never feel the pain of author. The ability not to be able to relate and understand someone’s struggle is very impactful.

The important thing in the reader response theory is the interpretive of the readers itself, rather than the author or even the text. The theory gives the competence to the reader to critic the text, however with the condition the readers have the evidence or research from other people toward the critic. The way of their interpretation may reveal their identity, because the reader gives the critic depends on their knowledge and experience (Philip Goldstein, 2005). Everyone has their own perspective toward anything, especially for the literary works. Each of people perspective is unique. That is why reader response was created. The theory is about the transaction between the writer and the reader. The writer composed a meaningful text, whereas the reader composed an interpreted meaning of the text. Reader response is not about destroying the writer’s idea, but it is more constructing the work itself (Louise M. Rosenblatt, 1988).

Along in with the author’s use of metaphors is the frequent use of imagery. In this reading, it is simple to envision the scenes as the different scenarios are explained and the audience can easily picture Staples in the places he is describing and also the people he comes across. Perhaps the most powerful and memorable imagery is provided in the author’s description of people’s different reactions and faces when they come into contact with him. Actions speak volumes and an immediate change of facial expression is possibly one of the

O. Henry used elements in “The Gift of the Magi” that created suspense for the reader. His structure of writing created suspense from beginning to end. In the first few paragraphs we could infer that Della was going to try and make money to buy Jim a Christmas present. Towards the middle of the story we could predict that Della was going to regret cutting her hair, and by the end we could infer that Jim and Della enjoyed a Christmas spent sharing their love for each other. The sequence of events that O.Henry used created suspense as we anticipated what would come next. O.Henry finished the story by talking about the Magi, and we had to analyze the meaning behind his use of the Magi. We also had to analyze O.Henry’s meaning behind the reference

From this point, he concludes that literature is concerned with symbolic action, that literary or mythological characters are typical, and that the world of poet imagery is “totally symbolic” (p. 75). He then moves to the principle of “literature as a whole” (p. 49): “you don’t just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms a part” (p. 69). Hence there is a progressive element in the study and teaching of literature: as we read more works, we become able to generalize from our experience of literature.

readers and their interpretations. This way, this character can either be seen as a man who is

Stories of love and sacrifice abound in literature. Perhaps one of the most well known stories among teens and adults is the tale of a poor, young couple struggling to find the perfect Christmas gifts for each other using their very limited means. They each manage to get what they think is the perfect gift for the other, but only accomplish this by selling a prized possession which effectively makes the new gifts impractical. This bittersweet narrative, “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry, illustrates the moral idea that a person, motivated by nothing but love for another, can possess a willingness to give in a self-denying way which necessitates that the reader consider that wealth be measured by something more than having money

The book had affected the narrator to a great extent. At first he did not care for the book, until the stranger selling Bibles said “the number of pages in this book is literally infinite. No page is the first page; no page is the last”. This intrigued the narrator’s mind. After he had bought the book, he began investigating. He noted down things in the book. He began losing sleep from the investigation and when he actually got sleep, his dreams were about the book. As it states in the short story, “At night, during the rare intervals spared me by insomnia, I dreamed of the book”. He had grown an obsession with the book, which altered his lifestyle and forced him to hide the book in the library.

With both writings it’s appropriate to consider their time period, especially to recognize the large separation between the works. In 1932, Woolf released The Second Common Reader, which comprises of twenty-six essays relating various literary topics. Our particular interest deals with the essay titled, “How Should One Read a Book?”, a section about exactly what the title states. Throughout the section, Woolf provides her opinion regarding how readers should read while still acknowledging how people will read in any way they desired. However, her main point deals with readers’ perception and interpretation of a work based on an understanding they should develop with the author. Instead of reading a work with no consideration, a reader reads with a writer’s mindset. As a literary writer, Woolf understands the difficulties that plague an author when writing a novel. In the essay, she suggests comprehending what a novelist does rely on the reader writing rather than reading, which introduces an interesting relationship between reader and author (Woolf, 259). This suggestion revolves around empathy and placing one’s position into another one’s shoes. Even without the obvious connection to the literary object’s identity, it represents a

“My purpose is to show that in every human heart there is an innate tendency towards a respectable life; that even those who have fallen to the lowest depths in the social scale would, if they could, get back to the higher life…”(Rollins 7-8 ). O`Henry came up with this philosophy when writing his many different, entertaining stories. “The Gift of the Magi” was initially published in 1906 in O`Henry`s second collection of stories. “The Gift of the Magi” is a perfect story to illustrate how people do anything for the ones they love. The main characters each sell their most valued possession in order to buy the other the perfect Christmas present. They each bought the other something to complement their prized possession. Ironically, they had both sold their prized possession to get the other a gift.However, they bought gifts that were now useless to one another. Themes have some aspect of life, general truth, or moral that is shown throughout the story by the author. The themes in this short story really stand out to the reader. The way in which the two main characters demonstrate their selflessness for each other helps to emphasize the three major themes: poverty, love, and sacrifice.