The Headstrong Historian and Arrivals - Essay Example

?Text Analysis The Headstrong Historian” The narrative takes an even level in the sense that the narrator hardly changed his style of narration in “The Headstrong Historian”. Right from the beginning of the text, there is a narrator who is set as a stand-alone entity who comes with an open tone of narration along the line of Nwambga’s storyline. Though starting on an agonizing note of the tragedy that Nwambga faced, the narrative could still get highly in-depth and justified as the narrator made no attempts to cover up the true pictures of events. For instance attempts are made to expose the true feelings of people about Mgbeke. It could be said therefore that though the narrative was on an even level course, this did not compromise the ideas and thoughts of the narrator in any way. There are two major elements of literary functions that bring out the voice in the text. These are diction and character development. A carefuk consideration of the author’s diction and character development pattern shows a clear indication that the voice is omniscient. Though greater part of the voice was dedicated to knowing more about Nwambga, this line seemed to be crossed when the narrator started going extensively into the minds of other characters as their roles were being developed. For the narrator to show such massive knowledge of different characters by developing different roles around them there is much evidence that the voice is omniscient, knowing just about everything on the characters. Throughout the text, the author (and for that matter narrator) is seen to be using third-person point of view. This is a point of view whereby the narrator is seen as an outsider, giving vivid account of events and processes as they unfold in the lives of the characters. A very unique approach in the point of view as presented in “The Headstrong Historian”. Right” is that the narrator does not only have great knowledge of prevailing characters in the story but also that of those who had departed (died) earlier. An example if when the narrator tells readers exclusively about Nwambga’s husband who had departed from the land of the living many years ago. 2. “Arrivals” The structure and style of the narrative could be described as being more or less an undulating one. This is because the narrator starts with one style, comes in with another and completes with an entirely different one. This situation could be due to the theme and nature of story being presented. Taking the storyline from a typical busy day scenario at an airport where interactions among people was inevitable, we see both an outsider narrative and an insider narrative. Once a while, the insider narrative comes in as the actual voices of the characters to consolidate the message of the outsider. This helped in giving a very clear understanding of events to the reader. The structure of the narrative had a lot of influence on the voice of the story. This is because it did not give room for there to be only one clear-cut voice description. To this effective, the voice could be described as both subjective and objective depending on whom the narrator was at any give point in the story. Once the outsider narrator took up the narration, the voice was seen to be objective. However, in the heat of the incidence at the airport, the insider narrators took a more subjective voice because of the need for them to justify their frustrations at the events at the airport and reasons as to why they did not deserve those occurrences. On the whole, the point of view could be described as a third-person point of view. This however had a lot of limitations from the structure and level of narrative. Unlike other types of text whereby the point of view is seen as even leveled, there was a situation where the third-person fell on characters to present their own points of view. In such situations, the point of view became first person. However, it is clear that the general point of view was third-person point of view because even after they made their own presentations, the third person point of view came back to interject what was said by the first-person point of view. 3. “The Signal” In this text, the narrator is presented as a stand-alone entity that is not part of the story being narrated. This of course affects the narrative’s levels and structure. The narrative is structured along two major lines where at the beginning the narrator is heard addressing a character in the text. Specific inferences are made to this character when the word ‘you’ is used to refer to the character in question. Along the narration however, the narrative turn out to be addressed to the reader when the attitude and nature of the author who was first being addressed is made to the reader. This therefore chances the form of pronoun from the second person to third person. In “The Signal”, voice is used to clearly depict the individual writing style of the author who puts up the text. The writer’s voice is also used to extensively bring out the perspective of the author about the story that was unfolding. To a very large extent, the voice could be described as limited as the narrative voice manifested a thorough knowledge of the main character of the story alone. Giving so much perspective of the character’s personality from infancy to adulthood and also giving a background of the character’s family, there is much evidence that the voice is limited, knowing so much than even expected about the main character of the story. The overall point of view is second person whereby the narrator hardly speaks directly to the reader. This evident when the narrator chooses just one person who was being addressed by the use of the pronoun ‘you’ at the beginning of the text. An example of text is made as “Maybe you obeyed the instruction to …..” However, the author does not maintain a singular subjective second person point of view throughout the text. Along the line while addressing the second person listener, efforts are made to give a vivid description of an unfolding character Leela. Once the narration shifted to Leela, a lot of third-person point of view is used but still maintaining the second person as the addressee of the third-person. Further Analysis on “The Signal” In “The Signal”, there were a lot of approaches used by the writer to gain a major foregrounding in his style of presentation. Childs and Fowler (2006) explain that “In literature, foregrounding may be most readily identified with linguistic deviation: the violation of rules and conventions, by which a poet transcends the normal communicative resources of the language.” Such deviations and violations of the rules do not necessarily constitute a failed presentation or render a piece of literature to be poor. Rather, foregrounding sets one piece of work from the other and makes it very unique in presentation and style. One significant role that the writer used foregrounding to play in writing “The Signal” was that the writer used it to create a clear cut division between selected clauses in the text. For instance we see the creation of foregrounding clauses in clauses that convey the most central ideas; and we also see the creation of foreground information with the use of propositional content (Nordquist, 2012). A typical example of such foregrounding that can be cited in the text is given as below: There you were, doing whatever you normally do online: filling in form fields, downloading porn, interacting, when suddenly up she flounced and everything went to pieces. In this instance, the foregrounding clause is “There you were, doing whatever you normally do online” whiles the rest of the sentence constitutes the foreground information. The use of metaphor is not absent from “The Signal”. Metaphor was actually used as an important analogy of linguistic discussion. It was used to partly make the text gain deep thinking understanding of some of its context as well as garnish the beauty of the presentation and make it more pleasant. A very typical metaphoric statement in the text could be quoted as Lines of idle brokers chewed their nails in front of frozen screens This context of metaphoric presentation was done to actually outline the intensiveness of the effect that Leela’s impact had on people and the business world. To say that the lines of idle brokers chewed their nails does not really mean that when the brokers went to stand in front of frozen screens, they chewed their nails but that they expressed various degrees of pain and agony for what they had been through. The discourse that took place in the text was highly transcending. This is because the author was very proactive in his approach and such proactive tag was seen from the way the author made the communication very open, spiced with examples and appealing to the conscience of the reader. For instance it could be seen that the author made clear attempts to make the discourse very open by using specific examples that the addressee might have experienced before. “Maybe you obeyed the instruction to check it out!” is an example of how the author made his discourse very open. What is more, the author gave the reader and the addressee for that matter much to ponder over as far as the attitude of Leela was concerned. This was done by using discourse that did not just feed the reader with information but also clearly expatiated on the gravity of the situation, quoting real figures and values to support the claims. REFERENCE LIST Childs P. and Fowler R. (2006). The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: Routledge Nordquist R, (2012). Foregrounding. Accessed April 29, 2012 from http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/Foregrounding.htm Read More