Creative Writing

Ambiguity in short stories is common and can be used in many different ways by the author. Flannery O 'Connor uses ambiguity in

While ambiguity in literary works may cause vagueness and sometimes confusion, it opens up the story to different interpretations. Ambiguity can be a powerful literary tool when the author uses it intentionally, giving the liberty to the readers to interpret the story for him or herself based on their own psychology and imagination. This motivates the reader to be actively involved with the storyline. In A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, ambiguity of motivation is portrayed by O’Connor herself and the characters within the story, creating an interactive piece of literary work.

One example of when the author causes us to be unsure of the truth is when he talks about the vietnamese man he killed. Then we find out that it wasn’t O’Briens fault from Kiowa to leave us in an even more confused state. He wrote this because he wanted to describe to us that even if he didn’t kill the man, it felt like he was responsible, because in a way he felt like the mysterious man was him. This particular event increases our understanding of the story because this is what it felt like to be in the war. You would blame yourself for the death of a fellow soldier or imagine your own self dead.

After identifying the basic structure of a message, a critical thinker must ask, “What words or phrases are ambiguous?” (p. 40) An ambiguous word or phrase is one that has multiple possible meanings. Ambiguous words or phrases in an argument create the need for clarification of the meaning before a reader can fully evaluate the argument.

“Role ambiguity occurs when people are unclear or uncertain about their expectations within a certain role, typically their role in the

ambiguity which, once resolved, leads the contemplator to the same conclusion as I do that in fact,

It is very important for the audience to have an understanding of the message the writer is trying to say. Singman’s article is full of different techniques which make her article intelligible for a majority of her audience. The techniques being used make the argument of the article more effective After writing this essay it has helped me to view writing differently. The way we put words together can make a huge difference to your audience. This is the reason why we need to be for careful with our word choice, depending on what we want our audience to take from our writing. We also need to understand that not everyone will be able to understand if we do not put it in a format that is clear to the

Internal summaries and Foreshadowing help the receiver to follow up the point which they are in the message;

     Chapter seven begins by explaining an example that would make the case against using ambiguity. In fact, the title of chapter seven is “Avoid Ambiguity”. While it is true that vague statements leave questions unanswered, the traditional idea behind gathering information is to find specific details and clear communicated

Fictional works such as myths, legends and stories often contain deeper meanings. A strategy used to achieve the deeper meaning is ambiguity. Ambiguous events happening at particular moments, raise uncertainty and doubts with the entire situation, thus making the audience question what they have just witnessed. Questioning the content leads to the audience interpreting the text for a deeper meaning. These ambiguous moments can be found in works such as My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Young Goodman Brown and Inception.

Saying that something is wrong or right is too easy. It is quick and simple to label an issue with one of those terms and then move forward. Ambiguity is less popular because it takes longer to process. Unfortunately, life is far too complicated to ignore ambiguity forever. Everyone encounters it at some point. In Doubt, ambiguity is introduced when Sister Aloysius accuses Father Flynn of abusing a student. At first, this situation seems fairly simple. Father Flynn is either guilty or innocent of committing a crime. But as the play continues, the audience starts to see that the struggle between Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius might be more personal. The true nature of their dispute becomes more evident in Scene Five, when

This is a good example from the chapter on words. It portrays how words can have different meanings to different people. There was a time when I told my fiancé to bring me hersheys from Walmart, however ,when he came back he bought the wrong one. There are a varieties of hershey candies, since I was not clear enough he misunderstood. I had to be clear in asking what I exactly wanted.

Then the novel suggests Ambiguity expresses excitement and mystery, which in excess can leave to frustration making it difficult to come to acceptance. “I saw my father, chaotic, surrounded by dogs, an all of them were screaming and barking into the tropical landscape.” (Pg.1) The expression of fear, mystery and excitement put into this one in the beginning of the novel unravels Mr. Ondaatje mixed emotions towards his father; Displayed by Mr. Ondaatje use of the sentence that is so ambiguous, that the reader is left with no other option but to question the events of the novel that led up to the thought. In this way, Mr. Ondaatje provided the base for his father as character of mystery and excitement.

Again, the dark laughter echoed in her head. Shit, shit, shit. She was so damn stupid, so bloody arrogant. In spite of the sunglasses she wore to lessen the risk of overstimulation to her senses, the lenses were no safeguards against the weighted stares of the people on the bus, and Tung wasn’t here acting as a buffer.

However there are areas that bring ambiguity, for instance a temporary mental imbalance in either the sense of Durham or Naughton, when the ability to rationalise outside the constraints