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Violence in mid 20th century literature
Importance of metaphor in literature
Importance of metaphor in literature
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2. Summary: Meursault, a shipping clerk living in Algiers, receives news of his mother's death. After hearing about the death of his mother, he travels to the nursing home that that he put her in after no longer being able to financially provide for the both of them. Unlike the traditional response to death by grieving for the deceased, Meursault continues on with his daily tasks as if his mother had never died. During a trip with Raymond and Marie, Meursault shoots the Arab, the brother of the mistress that cheated on Raymond, and is imprisoned.
Thomas C. Foster commences chapter 11 with the topic of violence, he claims that violence in literature goes beyond the line of just violence. A action of hitting someone as Foster states can be a metaphor. One great example Foster utilizes is from the poem written by Robert Frost, “ Out, Out” which is about a farm boy who is caught in a terrible violent situation which results in the boy dying out of blood loss and shock. This poem draws a point between the “uncaring relationship we have with the universe”, the inevitability we have with death and how minor our lives are. He then explains the two categories of violence in literature.
He states “violence has always been around, usually concentrated among the poor. ”(pg23) From his experience of growing up in the ghetto to seeing it now, he argues, popular culture has strongly influenced and supported an ethic of violence. He describes how the different kinds of violence evolved from his childhood to him being an adult. He explains that when he was a kid,when a problem emerged, him and his friends would solve it using their fists and sometimes weapons such as small knives.
Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle complicates the binary of the nonviolent and violent approaches to justice and instead suggests the creation of alternative paths to seek justice. The text engages with personal and social forms of justice. We can analyze the main character, Gunner Kaufman, to better understand how the text advocates for these alternatives. Although Gunner initiates violence in a dream sequence and in a truck driver scene, he does not cause harm to the victims, which complicates the previous binary of violence and nonviolence. Gunner advocates for gun use to seek justice for his fallen friend, while his gang uses alternative weapons, which endorses the creation of nontraditional avenues to justice.
In “Revelation” by Flannery O’Connor, she uses a character named Mary Grace to envoke a change in Ruby Turpin. O’Connor used violence to allow her, as the writer, to be able to create the right situation for her character (s) to make the critical change: We hear many complaints about the prevalence of violence in modern fiction, and it is always assumed that this violence is bad thing and meant to be an end in itself. With the serious writer, violence is never an end in itself. It is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially, and I believe these are times when writers are more interested in what we are essentially than in the tenor of our daily lives.
Close Reading - The Stranger In The Stranger, Albert Camus depicts a man, Meursault, who is emotionless to the situations that surround him. After committing a murder, he gets put on trial and is deemed as a danger to society, and therefore, gets sentenced to a death sentence. However, this decision was not made due to rational reasons but from false accusations on Meursault’s character and motives. In the passage, Camus uses point of view to portray how the people in the courtroom perceived Meursault the way they wanted him to act.
Right away the death of Meursault’s mother joined with other very random occurrences seem to be everyday occurrences. Once again I noticed the similarities of the two main characters of the book, acting as if all the events in their lives seem to be normal. Meursault views life so simply, despite its irregularity. This can be seen in the quote in which he talks about life, “I said that people never change their lives, that in any case on life was as good as another and that I was not dissatisfied with mine her at all”. He really exerts no emotion towards anything in this life.
The Stranger, written by Albert Camus, It follows the story of our tragic hero, Meursault, shortly after his mother dies through the events that lead to him being sentenced to death. Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions. The Stranger shows how even when a person does not explicitly express emotion they are shown in some way. How emotions are expressed is a window to a person's personality. I will first discuss how Meursault appears emotionless, than how Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions for him and lastly what impact this makes.
This novel is consumed with all different types of violence but for the most part the violence in the novel is “personal”. This type of violence is different from the regular “shoot `em up” or non-personal violence because with “personal” violence people are singled out and killed or hurt for specific reasons whereas with the other type of violence people are just hurt and killed for no reason at all. This person involved in the non-personal violence just was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hurt or killed for no reason at all. For example in the novel the killing of Moss was an example of “personal” violence because Moss was personally involved in the situation that got him killed. Moss was the one that stole “two point four million”
Symbolisms are significantly meaningful to thoroughly produce an influential impact on humanity’s understanding of life and death. It can either mold an atmosphere of assurance to a nation or a condition of skepticism and turmoil to a society. In “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote, there are countless of powerful imageries that establish the harsh reality of violence through thrilling uses of figurative language. To initiate, Truman Capote uses substantial diction to create a candid, yet gloomy tone.
Violent means can be justified by its ends, but it can be a risk of overwhelming the ends as a result of the unpredictable outcome due to unexpected events (Arendt 1969:4). The implements of violence are characterised as the tools which give more power of the one who possesses it (Arendt
How violence is applied in Antigone According to Foster, violence is one of the most personal and intimate acts between humans, and can also apply cultural and social implications in literature. Foster also points out that literature that has violence within it, may be seen as a metaphor. All of this can be seen and established in Sophocles tragedy, Antigone. Throughout Antigone, we see many different elements of literature that Foster establishes in his book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, however, none is seen more than violence. Foster states in chapter thirteen of his book that, “violence has to have some sort of meaning beyond the mere mayhem.”
“Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” (Camus 1) If someone were to say this in our world, it would be condemned, and the person would be thought of telling a sick joke or having even a mental problem. In reference to an absurd world, though, this usage of extremist ideals about death can better explain the concept and how it is seen by the writer.
This reinforces how unimportant death is to Meursault. Moreover, during the vigil, Meursault is overwhelmed with exhaustion and falls asleep, which the elderly folks that are present find disrespectful. However, Meursault is completely indifferent to how other people perceive him. Also, the caretaker of the elderly home in Marengo makes “blunt comments about how
When Meursault looked down at the gun, “The sun glinted off Raymond’s gun as he handed it to me” (Camus and Ward 56). Meursault later suffered the consequences of murdering the arab when he goes to prison and is ultimately sentenced to the death
