Barthelme's Not-Knowing

People one can never really tell how person is feeling or what their situation is behind closed doors or behind the façade of the life they lead. Two masterly crafted literary works present readers with characters that have two similar but very different stories that end in the same result. In Herman Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener” readers are presented with Bartleby, an interesting and minimally deep character. In comparison to Gail Godwin’s work, “A Sorrowful Woman” we are presented with a nameless woman with a similar physiological state as Bartleby whom expresses her feelings of dissatisfaction of her life. Here, a deeper examination of these characters their situations and their ultimate fate will be pursued and delved into

I gained a new perceptive during class, when reading “George Saunders Explains How to Tell a Good Story”. The reading of this article help me understood how to use more details to makes my story’s more meaningful. The reading of this article help me build up my paper on “No such Things” to use details to descipbe a story. Through the reading of the article, it help me to use experience through my life to build on my topic “…memory is an unreliable traveling companion through the years”. The reading of the article help me to create a meaningful story to blend it in with experience in my life and also to blending in with the topic of my paper.

Everyday, people are forced to make choices. Some of those choices are fairly easy to make, and others are not. In the short story “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor, a man by the name of Tom T. Shiftlet stumbles across a farm where an old woman and her daughter, Lucynell Crater, reside. When the author first introduces the readers to Mr. Shiftlet, he is described as “a tramp and no one to be afraid of” (674). What starts as a man accidentally coming across the woman’s farm, becomes a story that follows Tom through his unrealized quest for love and acceptance. With the help of Ms. Crater and Lucynell, Tom learns that his choices have consequences. In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, O’Connor creates a world in

Based on his argument using a piece of story from his past, the writer conceptually supported his explanatory point of views on how skills can be developed with a passion of understanding the writer’s intention. I believe that the writer of this article addressed fundamental thoughts that should be useful in the process of reading as a writer, and on how to become a better writer.

Every story has a setting. Whether it is in this world or one that is completely imaginary, the setting of any story is necessary in order to understand the characters. The characters in the following three short stories are shaped by their setting and would not be the same if the setting was different. Over the course of each story it is easy to see how vital the setting is in order for the reader to fully understand the characters and their lives. Therefore, while the reader reads these stories they must analyze how the setting affects the characters, the obstacles that the setting creates, and what it tells us about the characters.

The concept of “ignorance is bliss” is a concept that many people believe that will lead to peace. Throughout Ender’s game being ignorant lead to many consequences throughout the story. In Ender, by being ignorant of the consequences of wiping out the buggers resulted in a guilt that haunted him for a long time. In the case of the buggers, by failing to check whether or not the humans were truly sentient, they have brought upon their own destruction. In the case of the hegemon, by being unaware of their surroundings they were almost destroyed by a sudden attack by the Warsaw Pact.

In the Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates addresses to his son, what it is like being black in the United States. He explains what race is in America and how it shapes us as a country. He examines both personal and historic events to explain to his son what it is like to be black. Coates offers no answer to any of the problems, but he provides his son with his own experience and thoughts. Coates teaches many different lessons to his son, but he puts extreme emphasis on the fact that despite the black body is fragile, the black mind is not.

The purpose for this book is to bring together stories that have not been put together before. Larson brings together two opposite types of storylines and combines them into a unique perspective of writing to inform readers that many things can happen in one location as well.

Thomas Hardy once stated that “A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling; it must have something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experience of every average man and woman.” This quote encapsulates the key element of what makes a story interesting and worth telling: its uniqueness and deviation from the ordinary. While every average man and woman experience stories in their everyday life, they are typically uninteresting and uneventful. A story worth telling must contain the opposite; it must be so exceptional in its characters and events that it lies unparalleled among the life of any average person. Not only do the characters and setting of the story have to be exceptional, but a story worth telling will also contain unique literary elements. Various lessons, themes, symbols, imagery, and other literary devices may be present to further add to the story’s excellence. For these reasons, Lord of the Flies by William Golding and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote serve as two of the most prominent exemplifications of this quote, as both stories are exceptional enough to justify their telling.

In the short stories “A&P” by John Updike and “I Want to Know Why” by Sherwood Anderson, the protagonists experience powerful epiphanies. In “A&P” the epiphany occurs when the protagonist, Sammy, realizes that by quitting his job to try and impress some girls, his life will never be the same. In “I Want to Know Why,” the protagonist’s epiphany occurs when his hero, a jockey, brags to an unsavory woman in a brothel about winning a race, taking the credit away from the horse and making the protagonist realize that people are not always what they seem. These epiphanies are strengthened by the authors of both stories tightly controlling the characterization of the protagonists. The protagonist in “I Want to Know Why” experiences a stronger epiphany than the protagonist in “A&P.”

Authors use their point of view of a story to develop the central tone of a story, or to better institute what their purpose may be. Some authors may have the same purpose of different stories, or may have significant differences. Anna Quindlin (author of “Homeless”) and Lauralee Summer (author of “Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars”) both discuss having homes as a top priority when it comes to a childhood, and a feeling of normalcy and security; “Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars” was written to foretell how a home can affect one’s childhood, while “Homeless” was written to tell how “home is where the heart is” (834).

Before I began the fiction unit for this creative writing class, I did not think I would have an easy time constructing flash fiction or short story pieces. Previously, I never had the opportunity to write creative pieces for any of my English classes; therefore, the prospect of writing a full piece with a beginning, middle, and end frightened me a little. However, I believe the work I presented in this unit truly reflects my growth in understanding how to place words together to create thought-provoking themes about human relationships, trends that correspond to the themes, and writing processes that utilize writing techniques. I think my growth occurred because of my interest in writing about human relationships and experiences within flash fiction and short story pieces.

I have always loved stories. I love to read them, write them, and tell them. The telling part, though, quickly became a problem for me as a little kid because I ended up labeled a “compulsive liar.” But in my 5-year-old mind, I wasn’t lying, I was telling the more interesting version of what had happened. When I was six I wrote my first “book”. It was ten chapters and ten pages long and told the story a king who lost his jewels and hired a pair of ninja-detectives to recover them. When I was eight I wrote a memoir – although I didn’t know what a “memoir” was at the time – about a recent trip to Tuscan, Arizona. However, it wasn’t until the fifth grade that I really started writing short stories. The first one I wrote was about a town in Australia ruled by an

Chapter 2, Wrong is always wrong, is based on the concept that a lie regardless of reason will still always be wrong. A lie is a lie regardless of what explanation or reasoning is given. Famous and well respected philosopher Immanuel Kant is known for saying that we should not do to others what we do not want done to us. This allows for people to see a situation from a different perspective. Many times we tell a white lie not thinking anything of it but if that lie were told to us, would we be okay with it?

A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct