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Bridge To Terabithia Essay

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Name: Mohammad Khan
Course code: EAC488SYA Imagination as a theme in “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson
“Bridge to Terabithia” is a very complex story that on a first glance deals with a very simple plot line, one revolving around two children and the everyday problems they encounter at school or at home. However, if we analyze it, we will discover that it is much, much more complex. It deals with a number of motives from family life and the friendship between a boy and a girl and death, among others. One of the main themes that continue to appear at various times throughout the novel is imagination. The children use imagination for various purposes, including how to deal with the problems they encounter and as a means of …show more content…

The full definition of it in the dictionary states that imagination is ‘the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality’ (Merriam Webster dictionary). The act of imagining is therefore directly linked to reality, but it involves using the defamiliarization technique in the sense that it requires creating a world completely different from the one that can be found in reality. Imagination has a real basis in the sense that it has its roots in reality. This statement will be important in Bridge to Therabithia because the main part of the imagining act takes place in reality. The world the two main characters create is anchored in reality because it exists in their real …show more content…

However, when we consider the fact that the book with “the picture on the cover which showed a killer whale attacking a dolphin” (Paterson, 25) is a real piece of fiction, meaning that the book is real in our world, we can buy it and read it, but it is still a piece of fiction. Herman Melville’s story is invented, it is not real. Another very important aspect is the context in which Leslie is reading “Moby Dick” – in Terabithia, the imaginary land created by her and Jess. It is another key aspect of imagination that appears in the text to signalize the reader that he is now watching the children in their imaginary

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