Neil Gaiman's How To Talk To Girls At Parties

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.

‘lord of the flies,'. In R. Matuz & C. Falk (Eds.), Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol.

• What are the characters’ emotions, attitudes, and behaviors? What do these indicate to the reader about the character?

The expressions of the characters, caused by their surrounding, is also a factor that can alter the psychological traits in a character. The Man states “He does not trust his dreams, believing that they are "the call of languor and of death” (McCarthy 15).The man has a vivid

Neil Gaiman is a renowned British author, screenwriter, comic book creator as well as a voice actor. Using his position as a professional who never attended a university, he uses his experience to pass the fire of excellence to the new graduates. As tradition entails, a commencement address is often used to mark the beginning of something new. The commencement speaker, in this case, having never achieved university education, uses his freedom to address the audience, unlike other formal speeches to relate well with the graduates and pass the intended message.

The author did a good job of drawing personalities to different characters by the way and sometimes shocking things they would each carry. A good example of this would be the character Ted Lavendar, in " The things they carried". The intensity of war was too much for him and he used some kind of drugs and get dope to carry the things done. The reader can imagine his rattled nerves and mental state. As we can see in the story “ Ted levander, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot..” ( O'Brien). Also in “ A&P” we can perceive a drastic change in the personality when the main character saw the girls in that sexy bath suits. He was to be quiet doing his work, to be hypnotized and to change his attitude towards his boss negatively quitting his job thanks to the beauty of the girl as he said in the story: “ yes i quit” ( Updike).

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.

In Neil Gaiman’s short story, “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” Gaiman takes you on an out of the world encounter that occurs to two young teenage boys. The story starts off with Enn and Vic, the two young boys, who are trying to find a party by Croydon station. Vic is anxious to go to the party to meet some girls while Enn is more shy and apprehensive about talking to girls. When they finally find the party Vic goes off to mingle with a girl named Stella and Enn meets some very unique girls who tell him stories about traveling the universe and swimming in the sun. Enn starts to get friendly with one of the girls and right when he’s about kiss her Vic comes running to Enn saying that they need to go right now. When they finally get outside Enn sees that Vic is crying and scared out of his mind, but he never tells Enn what happened, but it is implied that the girls were aliens. The theme of this story would be that maybe guys and girls really are from different worlds. Gaiman develops his theme by using setting, point of view, irony, and dialogue.

Psychologists usually agree that the teenage years are among the most difficult periods in one’s life. Most teens are trying to figure who they are, what they believe, and how they fit into the world around them. Beginning in the late 1970’s, a whole genre of fiction, referred to as coming-of- age literature, emerged and serves, at least for many teens, as believable presentations of young people learning to navigate the difficulties of their lives, often fraught with feelings of rejection, seemingly unresolvable personal turmoil, social problems, school and family issues, etc. Indeed one value of reading is to see and better understand some aspects of ourselves through studying others. The reading of SPEAK, a somewhat controversial

Orson Scott-Card’s Ender’s Game is one such example, wherein the Wiggin siblings can each be interpreted to represent an aspect of Freud’s theory. Peter, cruel and self-centered, can be seen as the id; Valentine, kind an empathetic, as the super-ego; Ender, kind but capable of extreme violence, as the ego. Alternatively, Valentine can be seen as the ego as her relationship with Peter progresses, while Ender can play the role of a super-ego that has been manipulated by the corrupted moral views of the surrounding

In Joyce Carol Oates’ story entitled “The Lady with the Pet Dog,” the main character Anna fits Sigmund Freud’s definition of neurotic: “the ego and id become involved in an internal battle Freud calls neurosis” (Bressler 130). In addition to the ego and id, Anna’s superego also comes into play within her struggle. Throughout Oates’ story, the reader sees Anna’s internal conflict between the id, which dominates her personality, the ego, and the superego, which results in her neurosis. Oates makes it clear that the most dominant component of Anna’s psyche is the id, as she did not have the ability to resist her impulsive desires.

Often times, people view individuals by the way they handle situations and their responses to others. Every character in a story can be summed up in about three to four characteristics based on their actions and speech. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the narrator reveals his true character through the way he treats his younger brother. He possesses characteristics including authority, pride, and cruelty, and readers know these traits through Hurst’s dialogue and actions.

author will create a character’s emotions to demonstrate their point to help the reader understand

The short story “How To Talk To Girls At Party’s” by Neil Gaiman was very interesting. I enjoyed the story very much. It kept you intrigued and it drew you into the story. Although I’m not really into the science fiction in it, I didn’t believe it was awful. It made sense to add a fictional aspect to the story to something so realistic, that practically anyone will experience during their teenage years. I liked the story and the plot. First of all, Neil Gaiman is a great author and I did not expect anything less. Most of his work consists of some fiction. I liked it because it had an interesting twist in it, even though it hinted something odd that was going on in the story. It was a unique story; it was greatly written. It went into depth

This is seen abundantly when an old close friend of Rank’s, Adam Grix writes a novel that bears uncanny resemblance to his life and experiences. When he encountered an idea of himself in fictional form, because it didn’t fit the mould of how he sees himself, he became angry and critical of Adam’s work. He thinks of himself to be exclusively attributed to certain traits and characteristics and challenges others when they have an alternate opinion of him, thus analyses each aspect of his appearance in the novel, questioning, “how is it you could have me nailed down, and still get everything wrong?” (Coady 213). Rank becomes entranced by this and believes the book to be solely about himself. He skims the pages, “started reading specifically for the recognition...blasting through paragraphs and pages until [he] got to something [he] recognized” (Coady 270) and would fixate his anger and criticism on it. His ego prevents him from conceiving the idea that the book may have been a rendition of events or may have been a singular interpretation from a friend who watched closely from the sidelines. His ignorant assumptions cause him much grief and creates a temporary obsession that consumes much of his time. Similar to Lear, Rank also