ipl-logo

James Hilton Lost Horizon Analysis

2103 Words9 Pages

James Hilton’s Lost Horizon is a story of a British diplomat, Hugh Conway and his companions found a valley filled with various mysteries by accident when their plane crashes. Within the excerpt taken, there are a few literary features that can be explored in order to appreciate literature in linguistic description perspective. First, viewing the excerpt as a whole, I believe I had noticed that the story was told through a narrator with objective point of view. This shows throughout the excerpt as the narrator keeps telling the story by only focusing on the details that can be seen and heard. The narrator did not mention anything that could be related to thoughts and feelings of the characters in the story. For example, taken from the excerpt paragraph 10 – 11 when Conway asked; ‘but who has made all these plans?’ Mallinson answered sharply: ‘Lo-Tsen. She’s with the porters now. She’s waiting,’ the narrator did not describe how the Mallinson felt and think when Conway questioned him regarding the plan and the same goes to Conway’s when Mallinson told him about the plan in paragraph 9. In my opinion, the narrator seems to narrate the story with the least explanation in order to allow the reader to gain information based on the details that only reveled by …show more content…

Besides, the narrator of the story also seems to emphasize that Mallinson’s attitude when narrating the way Mallison speaks. For example, the narrator describe the tone of Mallinson’s voice when talking to Conway as ‘urgently’, ‘impatiently’, ‘sharply’ and ‘angrily’. The adverbs used give the readers a full view for Mallinson’s manner of speaking toward Conway and it highlighted the tension of the conversation happened between the

Show More
Related
489 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator describes the

Read More
901 Words | 4 Pages

Kelley’s diction adds a tone to the piece and allows her to get her message across with helping the reader understand more deeply . Kelley’s use of imagery, appeal to logic,

Read More
276 Words | 2 Pages

In his character descriptions, Miller’s personal opinion about the characters shines through in his wording and the way he describes the characters. Miller’s character descriptions falls

Read More
639 Words | 3 Pages

Before Tim Piazza’s night begins, he reaches in a closet that “his mother will soon visit to select the clothes he will wear in his coffin.” After the night of “torture”, Tim’s family will be reunited one last time with “the redheaded boy they have loved so well” so he does not “die alone”. These pieces of wording are prime examples of the instrumentality of emotionally involving the audience in any piece of writing. When simple statistics and bland facts don’t seem to push Flanagan’s stance quite far enough, she turns to powerful, almost agonizing wording to complete the task. The language may be exaggerated at times, but it’s undoubtedly effective.

Read More
1167 Words | 5 Pages

Dialogue is a literary tool the authors use to bring characters to life and enhance the story. Through dialogue, Bryks further illustrates the increased need for survival: “‘What do you, mean—later? We need bread now!’ ‘It’s easy for you to say ‘later’ because you have already eaten.’ ‘My children have had nothing in their mouths since yesterday!’”, revealing the urgency and desperation of obtaining bread (Bryks 88).

Read More
753 Words | 4 Pages

Within the restatement, the paper does not just summarize what happened; however, it looks at specific sections of the quote and expands upon them to set up its analysis. For instance, the paper says that the boys pick Ralph as their leader because he has the conch; the quote does a great job of supporting this point because it does not bring up any other evidence showing the boys picked Ralph except that of the conch. After the restatement, the paper moves onto explication, which connects it back to the central idea on human nature being bad or good. Still, even in the explication part, the paper does not go away from the quote, all the points it makes has evidence that can be found from the quote. At the end of the paragraph, the paper ends in a great way, which gives the final punch showing the novel depicts human nature as evil.

Read More
1067 Words | 5 Pages

“Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truthfulness at once, and to all other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by one who experienced them to the fullest” (Ransom 1). I believe that this type of storytelling makes the book more successful than how it would have been had there been another type used. Perspective one is a type of storytelling that readers and authors alike argue is quite useful. This style is made unique by its use of pure facts and limited amounts of other writing elements. If a book is written using only cold hard facts there would have been a plethora of information missing.

Read More
860 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator, an unnamed man is the most obvious protagonist of the story because he is the person telling the story and changes the most in that story. The narrators actions,

Read More
804 Words | 4 Pages

From the brief passage from the story, you can see how many bad decisions are being made and how they are adding up, leading towards the tragic end. As can see from reading, the

Read More
1002 Words | 5 Pages

Another situation is that Bartleby is found in the narrator’s office and it cause the narrator to question Bartleby. Also when the narrator is by himself with Bartleby in the office it reminds him of the murder of Adams by Colt which shows the narrator’s feeling of the murder “rose in [him] and tempted [him] concerning Bartleby, [he] grappled him and threw him”(30). The office reminded the narrator of the murder which is why the office is very significant toward the relationship between Bartleby and the narrator. The office where Bartleby works affects Nippers, Turkey, and Ginger. Because at first Nippers suggested to fire Bartleby but then Nippers tell the narrator to give Bartleby a couple of days to recover.

Read More
909 Words | 4 Pages

In the beginning of the story, she heard the news of her husband’s death in train accident from her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend, Richard. She was shocked by the news and showed sad feelings in the story. However, when I was reading through the story, I could infer that Mallard had a terrible marriage life with her husband because the story later said that Mallard was happy because she had freedom. In the beginning of the story, she was shocked and sad but later on, she was happy because of in dependence. These evidences prove that she is a dynamic character.

Read More
520 Words | 3 Pages

When Richard’s heard the news of her husband’s death, he assumed Mrs. Mallard would be devastated. While everyone knew Mrs. Mallard was “afflicted with heart trouble” (57), him and her sister, Josephine, wanted to give her the news with “great care” (57). Josephine broke the news to Mrs. Mallard in “broken sentences”

Read More
729 Words | 3 Pages

Porter then brings us on a recount of how the narrator’s day had been and who she had interacted with. The interaction between the different characters and our narrator allows the reader to understand her personality and exactly how she has her things ‘stolen’ because of it.

Read More
1289 Words | 6 Pages

Marquez chose an unnamed, unknown, first person narrator. The narrator parallels with the reader in that the narrator and the audience are both given all conflicting perspectives of every version uncovered. The narrator does not share the same association the other characters he interviews in the novella because he no longer lives in their village. The narrator 's loose attachment from the murder is evident when he says, “I met him a short while after she [narrator’s mother] did, when I came home for Christmas vacation” (28). The narrator was not in his town for the event so he is not as connected as most of the characters that share their story in the novella.

Read More
693 Words | 3 Pages

Where at in the world? By not giving these details to the reader, this turns it into a universal theme of power, fear, and terror. Overall, my opinion of this story is that it was strategically written to be analyzed and comprehended through repetition. It is not a story to be read once and

Read More

More about James Hilton Lost Horizon Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document