ESSAY CEMETERY

This short story is summarized in bullet points for no good reason. Events ·        It's a hot dry summer. Tony's friend Leon comes back from the army. He is drinking. ·        A state cop punches Leon in the face ·        Leon is admitted to the hospital with broken teeth and get stitches ·        Tony dreams about the cop who has white round eyes on a ceremonial black mask instead of a face ·        Leon gets better but wants revenge and Tony tries to dissuade him ·        Tony sees the cop in a gas station store and Leon says he is just as good as the cop ·        The cop follows them and they pull over. He makes them get out of the car. ·        Tony knows he can't look at the cop's eyes. He tries not to but then looks at ...

Todorov, Tzvetan.  "Chapter 3: The Uncanny and the Marvelous . "   The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre . 24-57. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975. Print. The evanescence of the fantastic genre means that a work may change genre mid-reading. The first part constitutes the marvelous or uncanny- the reader thinks there is either a natural or supernatural explanation to the events. The second part is the fantastic genre, in which the reader hesitates over his explanation of the events. The part that follows the decision contains a shift – there reader realizes his primary explanation of the events was wrong, and the genre shift again to either marvelous or uncanny- the opposite from the first part. Texts which are unresolved are fantastic in their entirety. The transition between genres is not sharp. If a story begins as uncanny, it will transition through fantastic-uncanny and fantastic-marvelous before becoming marvelous. The fantastic-uncanny is "the su...

Todorov, Tzvetan.  "Chapter 2: The Fantastic . "   The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre . 24-57. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975. Print. The fantastic is a genre that exists while in the work of literature there is uncertainty as to whether an event is caused by natural or supernatural sources. Once the reader has chosen one explanation or another the work transitions into the fantastic’s sister genres: “the uncanny (supernatural)” or “the marvelous (hard to believe but governed by rules of reality)”. The fantastic is characteristic of a situation, normally involving characters in the “real world”, where there is a simple realistic explanation for what is happening, but this explanation conflicts with the protagonist’s feeling that the supernatural explanation is the correct one. Many times in the genre, the sense of uncertainty builds up over time. Supernatural events are juxtaposed with natural emotions, or natural behavior until the protagonist’s judg...

Todorov, Tzvetan.  "Chapter 1: Literary Genres. "   The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre . 24-57. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975. Print. Tzvetan Todorov “The Fantastic” is a name given to a kind of literature, to a literary genre.” Genre is about examining a text in the context of many others belonging to the same genre, as opposed to analyzing a text in its own right. The definition of a genre is done by examining a limited number of texts belonging to this genre, formulating a theory of the genre, and modifying or rejecting it, as necessary, upon examination of new texts that belong to the same genre {biology analogy: the discovery of a mutant tiger doesn’t make us change the definition of the tiger as a species, whereas the discovery of an aberrant text may make us redefine the genre to which the text belongs}. A text which does not modify our idea of the genre or bring anything new to the literary table is categorized as pop literature, whereas it is...

"The Swan" is a short story by Roald Dahl. It tells the story of Ernie, a teenager who receives a rifle for his birthday, and his friend Raymond. Ernie and Raymond go hunting in the countryside with the new gun. There they encounter Peter Watson, a 13-year-old whom the two boys often bully in school. Ernie and Raymond want to kill a swan sitting on her nest. Peter defends the bird, and this enrages the boys. They shoot the swan, sever her wings and tie the wings to Peter's arms. They force him to climb a tree and "fly".             It is not clear whether Peter actually takes flight, or rather jumps from the tree. There are several clues in the text which can help the reader decide on an explanation. However, the answer is by no means clear-cut. This uncertainty is precisely the subject of Tzvetan Todorov's essay, "Definition du Fantastique", where he defines the fantastic as a literary genre. According to Todorov, "the [fanta...

Todorov, Tzvetan. "Chapter 4: Reading as Construction."  Genres in Discourse . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 39-49. Google Books. Web. 22 Aug. 2012. Tzvetan Todorov Todorov will discuss the reading of classical fiction or representative texts. While reading this type of text a construction unfolds to the reader. Novels do not imitate a pre-existing reality. Instead, they construct a new, imaginary universe. There are techniques the author employs to get readers to construct this world. Referential sentences and no others induce construction. Sentences that create a clear picture are referential and sentences that are general, abstract or vague are not. Different referential sentences contribute in differently to the construction of the world. They can contribute to mode, time, and point of view. Mode – verisimilitude of fictional world Time - Sentences can help place events in time for the reader Point of view - sentences can help the reader picture the...