Formalism Criticism Issues - Essay Example

Tension refers to the fundamental cohesiveness of the work, and frequently involves irony and paradox. Intentional fallacy refers to the perception that the meaning of a work may be determined by the intent of the writer. The affective fallacy is the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be deduced from how it affects the reader. The external form is the overlaying trappings of a work, such as rhyme, scheme, and meter, amongst others. Objective correlative refers to the collection of circumstances, objects and /or activities that evoke certain emotions immediately.

First, to perform this analysis it is important to select and underline the keywords for the thesis above (thesis is used for the sentence loosely).

This thesis does not limit and focus on what the writer had intended to say regarding the object. This thesis is very unclear as it as the words fail to produce any cohesive meaning. The three keywords are so unrelated within the context of the thesis to the extent that they fail to provide any focus on the object and subject of the short sentence.

Secondly, the sentence does not seem to mirror the theme of the story. Perhaps the main theme in the story is love; however, adjoining the journey to the key character builds the theme, though it is unclear.

The story is a narrative told as a flashback by Jacob, and it begins to describe his life in the nursing home and the dilemma he runs into when someone claims that they gave water to the elephants, so the book converts into a total flashback where Jacob narrates his life in the circus. In the book, the author applies varying language techniques such as broken English and everyday slang. For instance, the author paints a scene where Camel pleads with Blackie to free Jacob, “… I’m tellin ya! …need no trouble, let I’m go! (Gruen, 193).

This category of syntax provides a deep insight into the setting of the novel, although the storyline is set in first person, and the writer converses in a different dialogue to allow the reader to gain incisive insight into the characters. Flashback is used in the book to provide a portrayal of the changes in Jacob’s life to his old age, and then it shows how Jacob ponders over his past and tries to rekindle his present.

In this type of literary criticism, text analysis is primal, and how the meaning is communicated through the text becomes the major focus of the analysis. Text elements such as grammar, meter and tropes become important for the analysis. In the novel Water for Elephants, the structure and syntax were used for formalism criticism in this paper.