Aphra Ben's Oroonoko and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders

Alice Munro is a Canadian short story writer and Nobel Prize Winner. In her article “What is Real”, Alice Munro discusses the difficulty many of her readers seem to have in telling fact from fiction as she writes about her own fictional works. Her readers, she recounts, often ask her if she writes about real people, or real events, apparently unable to comprehend “the difference between autobiography and fiction” (Munro). However, by the end of her article on the subject, “What Is Real?” Munro admits that the imagination is one she herself often blurs. “Yes,” she writes, “I use bits of what is real, in the sense of being really there and really happening, in the world, as most people see it, and I transform it into something […] in my story” (Munro). In other words, Munro sees her work as a kind of fiction because she uses both reality and fact. This makes her work honest but yet not real at the

This paper will be a unique interpretation coupled with an analysis of rhetoric in A Thousand Acre’s by Jane Smiley. This non-fiction novel is told in third person omniscient and is focused on the point of view of one of the main characters, Ginny Cook. A Thousand Acres was a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear; set on a large farm and small town in Iowa. This setting is important to the plot because it is more realistic compared to a far away mystical land that is detached from its audience. Smiley uses various rhetorical and literary techniques within her book to engage readers while still keeping to the basic storyline previously written by Shakespeare. Smiley’s use of language positively aids the imagery and emotions seen

Richard Wagamese’ expertise in the realm of story telling unlocks a dream world where he has the ability to accurately portray the protagonist’s emotions directly to the reader. Wagamese is able to flip in between current events and past stories to ultimately immerse the reader into a world of imagination. Additionally, he perfects the order in which these stories are being told. By doing so, it allows the reader to take pity upon the protagonists at hand in an utmost flawless succession. Lastly, through effective and clever story telling, Wagamese is able to engage the reader by placing them in both the shoes and minds of his protagonist. It is the profound ability of story telling Wagemse possesses that allows him to create intriguing protagonists who drive the plot of the novel through the stories told.

Literature of the English Restoration offers the example of a number of writers who wrote for a courtly audience: literary production, particularly in learned imitation of classical models, was part of the court culture of King Charles II. The fact of a shared model explains the remarkable similarities between “The Imperfect Enjoyment” by the Earl of Rochester and “The Disappointment” by Aphra Behn—remarkable only because readers are surprised to read one poem about male sexual impotence from the late seventeenth century, let alone two examples of this genre by well-known courtly writers. In fact, Richard Quaintance presents ten more examples by lesser-known poets as he defines the literary sub-genre of the neo-Classical “imperfect

Wayne C.Booth is the first introducer of the term ‘unreliable narrator’ back in 1962. In his perspective, a narrator is “reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work, unreliable when he does not” (1983: 158–59). In a nutshell, an unreliable narrator gives the readers either incomplete or inaccurate information. In the literary context, authors use this type of technique to add a twist to the plot or the ending of the story for it creates mystery.

Editha by William Dean Howells, will go down as one of many strong points of evidence when it comes down to literary realism. This comes into

Literature has been a part of our cultural inheritance that enriches our lives from centuries. Every literary work carries such great historical, social, intellectual importance and deepens our understanding of our society as well as our history. History plays a basic role in shaping any kind of literary works: every play, poem, novel we read is either affected by the people surrounding the author, the political context in which it was written or the society that shapes the entire work. As Roland Barthes argues that the author “can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original” meaning that he is always the product of his time and that he always writes what she or he learned from that particular time in history.

Nature does not depend on the thought and/or actions of humans. An example of this can be seen after Jim, Henry’s friend, dies. Henry wishes to make an impassioned speech in honor of his friend, but he is disrupted by the uncaring sun in chapter nine. It is “pasted on the sky like a wafer.” Nature knows or cares nothing about the issues of humans. This a great addition to the novel.

Many people believe Defoe’s 1722 writing “A Journal of the Plague Year” is real based on the first person narrative, even though it’s a fictional retelling of the events. In his story, the narrator is faced with a difficult decision: to stay in London or flee from the plague. In the end, he decides to stay because of God’s

At first reading, Ian McEwan’s Atonement seems to be a modernist novel that owes much of its stylistic techniques to classic novels by authors such as Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen. That is, until the first-time reader turns a page to discover the epilogue entitled “London, 1999” and has this illusion shattered by the revelation that in fact Parts One, Two, and Three were penned by none other than the 77-year-old Briony Tallis. This epilogue, and what it divulges about the events we have just read, turns the book into a metafiction. A close rereading of the book turns up multiple references to the fact that it is in fact a manuscript written by the elderly Briony. McEwan’s metafictional

Austen has set out to save the rising art form of the novel. In this address to the reader she glorifies what a novel should be: the unrestrained expression of words conveying the wide range of raw human emotion. This veneration of the novel is necessary to the development of Catherine's fiction-loving character as it justifies the narrator's right to remain fond of this flawed heroine.

1.It is significant that Woolf’s essay is partly fictional, for it shows her greater knowledge of her writing, as she was a woman herself writing fiction. She does not write completely in non-fictional mode, as to not stay biased to her views and experiences, yet to allow the readers to have an open imagination on where the events that had happened at “Oxbridge” could also take place.

This paper is an attempt to examine the seeming opposition of religion vs. self-interest with respect to the character of Robinson Crusoe. I will venture to demonstrate that in the novel, Defoe illustrates the contradictions with which Crusoe must contend as he strives to please God while ensuring his own survival in the world. In part, I will endeavor to show that a distorted sense of Puritanism as well as the existing colonial mindset exacerbated this opposition, and resulted in what I propose to be Defoe's (possibly retroactive) imposition of a religious justification for Crusoe's actions.

The novel is distinguished from the long narratives in verse of Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton which, beginning with eighteenth century, the novel has increasingly supplanted. Within these limits the novel includes such diverse works as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy; Jane Austen’s Emma

In the first part of the eighteenth century, the ascent of the novel profoundly adjusted the craft of English account. On the other hand, the built up true to life convention influenced the improvement of the novel to a degree not yet completely figured it out. Amid this period, neither one of the forms can be completely comprehended without the other. (Historical Background: The 18th Century)