English 104 - Introduction to Narrative
Tasha Graff
The Eye Verses the Ear: Making Sense of Nonsense
Category: 2 Essay: Carroll, Twain, Faulkner, Sebold | Tasha Graff
What the eye sees and what the ear hears are two separate entities, especially in the realm of the written word. Hearing a story read aloud verses actually reading the words of the story with one’s own eyes can result in different interpretations and reactions to the story. This discrepancy...
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Posted by tgraff on December 08, 2003 at 10:45 PM
Looping Through Time
Category: 10 Blog: The Lovely Bones | Tasha Graff
Susie defines herself as curious, and she wants answers, but she also wants a heaven where she “would feel only joy” (120). “‘If you stop asking why you were killed instead of someone else, stop investigating the vacuum left by your loss, stop wondering what everyone left on Earth...
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Posted by tgraff on December 03, 2003 at 03:55 PM
Darl's transformation
Category: 09 Blog: As I Lay Dying | Tasha Graff
Darl is central to the weaving of the monologues of the Bundren family and outsiders. Throughout the novel, Darl keeps coming back to narrate. Darl is the unifying force behind a family that is tearing apart because of the death of Addie. However, in Darl’s final monologue (253-254) Darl is...
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Posted by tgraff on November 24, 2003 at 08:43 PM
Disjointed Narrative, Disjointed Family
Category: 08 Blog: As I Lay Dying | Tasha Graff
No one in the novel seems capable of dealing with death. Anse is concerned about “[trying] to do as she would wish it” (106), with regards to burying Addie with her family, but he is also happy to go on the journey so he can get teeth – “But now...
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Posted by tgraff on November 18, 2003 at 12:46 AM
naive fraudulence
Category: 07 Blog: Huckleberry Finn | Tasha Graff
The events that play out after Tom Sawyer arrives back on the scene are perhaps the most disturbing events in the novel. Tom is so intent on “[inventing] all the difficulties” (247), he disregards any thoughts of safety and the potential death of Jim. Huck could have saved Jim in...
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Posted by tgraff on November 10, 2003 at 02:10 PM
Allowances for Fellow Stretchers
Category: 06 Blog: Huckleberry Finn | Tasha Graff
“If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way” (142). Though Huck is an adventurer, he likes to avoid being amidst trouble, and usually makes every effort to...
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Posted by tgraff on November 03, 2003 at 09:34 PM
The Widow acting as Huck's Conscience
Category: 05 Blog: Huckleberry Finn | Tasha Graff
Huck Finn is consumed with questions of right and wrong and good verses evil. He often reflects on things in terms of what other people would think, like Tom Sawyer or the widow and Miss Watson. When Huck and Jim are talking about Solomon (p 86-90), Jim gets riled up...
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Posted by tgraff on October 27, 2003 at 08:49 PM
Ghosts of Truth
Category: 11 Essay: James and Bronte | Tasha Graff
Novels take readers to another world. A reader’s journey to an unknown, but similar world to his/her own is much like a characters journey to the end of a book. Both readers and characters are confronted with surprising situations; at times, a reader knows more about certain consequences of...
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Posted by tgraff on October 22, 2003 at 04:22 PM
Third Person Narrator
Category: 04 Blog: Alice in Wonderland | Tasha Graff
The narrator of the "Alice in Wonderland" is a third-person narrator who is not all knowing, but has access to all Alice’s thoughts and emotions. The story is developed through the young, naïve Alice’s dialogue with other characters, and her thoughts as presented by the third-person narrator. “This curious child...
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Posted by tgraff on October 06, 2003 at 05:53 PM
romantic hero?
Category: 03 Blog: Wuthering Heights | Tasha Graff
Bronte develops the character of Isabella to play out a somewhat stereotypical teenage girl. Isabella thinks of Heathcliff as a romantic hero. At the beginning of the novel, Heathcliff does have a mysterious aura about him; the reader gets the impression of an unshaven, unkempt, handsome man. Catherine is the...
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Posted by tgraff on September 29, 2003 at 05:27 PM
Nelly the unreliable
Category: 02 Blog: Wuthering Heights | Tasha Graff
Nelly Dean is an unreliable narrator, and far from objective. From the beginning of her narration, her bias against Heathcliff is clear. When Heathcliff returns from his long, mysterious absence, Nelly imparts her opinion by saying she “had a presentiment, in the bottom of [her] heart, that he had...
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Posted by tgraff on September 22, 2003 at 10:07 PM
Misreading Mrs. Grose
Category: 01 Blog: Turn of the Screw | Tasha Graff
The governess gets used to how readily Mrs. Grose agrees with her, and when she (the governess) sees Miss Jessel for the second time by the lake, she is thankful that Mrs. Grose is there to witness the occasion, never once thinking that Mrs. Grose would not see the...
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Posted by tgraff on September 15, 2003 at 05:48 PM
Practice Run
Category: Tasha Graff
Here I am sitting in my dorm room trying to post my first blog. I hope it works. Practice makes perfect… Practice practice practice. Practice practice practice. Practice practice practice. Practice practice practice....
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Posted by tgraff on September 09, 2003 at 04:13 PM