“The Cricket Match”
Samuel Selvon’s short story, “The Cricket Match” explores the subtle racial tensions amongst West Indian immigrants living in England whilst working with English counterparts. Selvon sets his narrative in a tyre factory in Chiswick, England. Most likely, the timeline in which this story occurs is somewhere in the mid 1950’s when England were still colonists of most of the English speaking Caribbean islands. The main idea behind Selvon’s tale lies with Algernon the protagonist, whose desire to fabricate his knowledge of cricket, so as to simultaneously impress but show disdain towards the Englishmen around him backfires because it is this self-proclaimed knowledge which places him into conflict. Selvon also
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Selvon ingeniously crafts the resolution, though with slight absurdity, through a somewhat amusing and likable manner very similar to that of a picaresque novel. Algernon manages to compose an unenthusiastic team to play against the English team. Still, even more amusingly, the English players are equally afraid of Algernon’s team and vice-versa. The match commences with the West Indian eleven batting first, and displaying a commendable though fortuitous performance. Conversely, and perhaps conveniently though, rain begins to fall, hence bringing the match to an abrupt end. This resolution allows Algernon to save his ‘credibility’ and further taunt his English co-workers: ‘“If my bat didn’t fly out my hand”… as if to say he would have lost the ball in the other county.’ and: “… next cricket season I will get a sharp eleven together… now if you want me to show you how I make that stroke…” This conclusion which Selvon employs gives Algernon a fairly roguish characteristic, and thus the picaresque similarity.
Selvon’s plot structure is basically simple and straightforward. The narrator introduces the story and highlights the major flaw of the protagonist, which then manifests itself as a central part of the conflict. While the rising action begins to escalate, minor episodes relating to the conflict begin to surface, thereby enhancing the dramatic effect of the climax. The plot’s falling action is
In recent decades, Cormac McCarthy has staked his claim as one of the all-time titans of American literature through publishing masterpieces like Blood Meridian, Suttree, and The Road. In his works his advanced level of technical mastery becomes apparent through his expertly harmonized coordination of literary elements toward certain narrative ends, such as the generation of suspense. In this light, McCarthy’s literary style is a practical one, in that he organizes literary elements in his works toward actualizing particular goals. In The Road, for instance, McCarthy directs his style throughout the text so as to maximize the feeling of suspense that readers experience throughout the book. This kind of stylistic maneuvering is expressed on pages 105-110 and pages 118-123 of the the text. But, it must be noted here that the generation of suspense in these passages does not result from similar stylistic approaches. McCarthy uses style in differently in Passage A and Passage B but ultimately toward the same end, namely generating suspense for readers of The Road. Passage A relies on dialogue to develop its suspense, whereas the style of Passage B relies on narrative action for its suspense.
There are many question about how the great game of baseball originally started and how it has grown to become Americas game that so many of us enjoy so much as little kids until till we die. Baseball is one of the only games today where the rules of the game have stayed the same since a guy named Abner Doubleday first evolved the game in 1845. Then he went on to be a Civil War hero shortly after as the game of Baseball became Americas beloved national pastime.
Not much is known about the origin of soccer. However, the Greeks and Romans played football and ball kicking games. The London Football Association developed the first sets of rules in 1863. British sailors and settlers brought the game to India, South America and Europe.
While reading The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, there were many ways that the author uses suspense to keep the reader interested and wanting to continue reading. When the author is using these methods of suspense, the reader could be put in many different expressions such as being angry or confused because of a sentence. In The Most Dangerous Game, the two main forms of suspense that the author used made me as a reader feel both confused and interested. My goal in this text is to introduce to you the two forms of suspense that I found most compelling in the story and why they were so effective while I was reading.
The essay “The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever” written by Michael J. Mooney tells the story of a man, Bill Fong, who almost bowls a perfect series, but suffers a stroke as he is throwing his last shots.
The story’s state of casualness is only the beginning of the upcoming fiasco. While resting on his yacht, “Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on him.” (2). Connell had the intention of setting a tranquil atmosphere by not incorporating any sort of chaos in the beginning and also bring forth no inkling of Rainsford’s possibility of tragedy. By writing the portion of laziness within Rainsford’s journey, the imagery of the small puffs of smoke in the darkness of the night generates the setting in the audience’s mind. Nothing is wrong, nothing is suspicious, and all the reader can imagine is the carefree atmosphere of the scene. Moreover, imagery is written by the author to lower the presentiment of the reader. Without this section of imagery, the audience will never realize the escalation. While enjoying a repast, General Zaroff, “was smiling his
Connell deploys the literary device of metaphors perpetually throughout his thriller to delineate a suspenseful mood. Subsequent to the complication of the plot, Connell writes, “The lights of the yacht became faint and ever vanishing fireflies” (14). Here, Connell portrays the current setting, of the yacht moving farther away from Rainsford in the middle of the ocean, through analogizing the lights of the yacht he occupied previously to fireflies. In turn, this leaves the reader to feel a sense of enticement and allows them to question where the fate of Rainsford now lies, since he presently has no form of transportation to achieve tranquility, thus abating Rainsford’s chances for survival. Furthermore, the author manifests a theme of trepidation in this moment of the short story due to vividly describing the scene as greatly dark and sullen, which therefore unveils mere fear in Rainsford since he will soon have to formulate an elaborate plan to find safety. Moreover, one observes the concept of menace in this portion of the text, for the author writes current destiny of Rainsford as rather cryptic which presents danger for Rainsford and his life. Whilst Rainsford partakes in General Zaroff’s lethal game, narrator remarks, “The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse” (24). Taking into consideration that mice are cat’s prey, Connell, through comparing General Zaroff to a cat and Rainsford to a mouse, limns how General Zaroff has more dominant in the game thus far, ergo diminishing Rainsford’s possibilities for
“Suspense arises naturally from good writing - it's not a spice to be added separately,” (Leigh Michaels). Suspense is an important aspect of writing, used to keep readers wondering and guessing what could happen next and how the story may end. Writers universally use this trait of suspense in their work to keep people interested in the writing, though there are many techniques they use to do this. In the example of “The Most Dangerous Game” author Richard Connell generates suspense using various methods of foreshadowing as well as skillfully crafting the plot in a suspenseful manner.
Since colonial times, sporting successes especially in cricket have assisted the emerging nation of Australia to establish its identity. The prevalence of cricket in Australia constitutes what Markovits and Hellerman (2001) coin a, “hegemonic sports culture”, and subsequently represents an influential part of Australian culture. However, the modernity discourse undermines the degree to which Australian identity is taking into account British Legacy.Today the Australian culture is comprised of a differing scope of encounters, nationalities and cultures, subsequently confounding the idea that Australian identity is based on British heritage. The verbose accentuation set on Australia’s
Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of this novella has written it very cleverly, with certain techniques used that have a greater impact on the reader and ones that make it more than just any thriller/shocker. Every novella has a purpose to it and so does this story, the purpose of this novella has been made to narrative the reader and it is quite clearly reflecting the genre of the thriller/shocker. As well as this the novella has been made as a shilling shocker which depends on sensationalism and represents an immoral lifestyle that may include violence in extremity.
There has been much scrutiny over college athletes receiving illegal benefits over the years. What should be looked at more closely is why these benefits are illegal in the first place. The NCAA has such a stranglehold on college athletics that college athletes are not allowed to do what many other college students do. Many recent scandals have sparked the debate of the payment of college athletes. There has been controversy as to whether college athletes should be paid, or whether they should be happy with their scholarships.
As I sat and watched the college world series this weekend I began to wonder about baseball and several questions came to mind: where did we get the game of baseball? Who should we give credit to for the formation of the game we see today?
*From the onset, this fictional tale grasps the reader’s attention as curiosity is evoked to find out what is going to happen. A hint of the narrator’s madness and paranoia can be perceived in the initial statement he makes rendering his reliability questionable at best. This type of narration adds destabilizing effect onto the reader.
This chapter also prepares the reader for the immediate rough justice of the lynch mob at the end of the novella. Furthermore this also shows how one can get his hopes up but justs like in the poem Of mice and men, “The best laind schemes o' mice an' me. Gang aft agley, An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promised joy.” This is another message John Steinbeck is trying to convey, there is always a person like Curley's wife or the ploughshare or the heron who can lance upon your dream and shatter them in an instant. Furthermore as we can relate to the characters it shows how violence is used every single
It had been an unbelievable season so far, we were going into the championship game of junior league with only two losses. Of course, the only other team with a better record than us was the black team. We gave them their only loss on the second game of the regular season. Now, after defeating the better of the Mosinee teams in the semi finals, my dad, who was also the coach of our blue team, had stopped to watch the rest of the game between black and red.