Creative Fiction and Non-Fiction - Literature review Example

Total word count: 1610 Essay + Journals This paper summarizes the following stories, briefly. Me Talk Pretty One Day This story written by David Sedaris is narrative from a 41-year-old person trying to learn language as he joins school again. He first started with his nervousness as the very question of knowing alphabets seemed unfamiliar to him. He could find two Polish girls gaving him the comfort, as they were also new to English class. The class was full of non-English speaking students, while teacher asked few of them about the things that each liked or hated in his/her life. The narration is a description of different tastes of hatred and love as they carry relative meanings. For the narrator, IBM typewriter, pronounced as “bruise” in French and Electric floor waxer was his favorites, while he hated brain pudding and blood sausages. This Monkey, My Back This is another narration by a writer, who writes about his writing experience. He describes writing as the passion, habit or an addiction. Explaining his hunt for writing, the narrator describes various stages of his activities as he grew up, until he read literature from Flannery O’Connor, which led him to join the literature classes. Narrator also talks briefly about Krishna, the Hindu Novelist, who happened to be expressionless. In contrast, his experience at the class of Vance was full of excitement. “Who I am” Story by Catherine Ramsdell This story focuses on the exploration of knowing about one’s existence. The writer has suggested many brain storming tools, which can answer this simple, yet complicated question. Guiding through the steps for writing a story, the author recommends noting down the questions and events, while writing down all minor details that come to mind. Further, the author suggests taking a break and then summarizing the story in a couple of sentences, with final touches of detail given at the end, while keeping the dominant part of story intact. The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm by Mark Twain Mark has detailed the follies of a burglar alarm. The humor in the story is well-detailed by author through an episode of burglary in a house having a burglar alarm. Instead of alarm, the smoke from pipe of the burglar has alarmed the house owner. In another episode, the burglar alarm proved nuisance, as the cook’s daily routine of visiting kitchen early morning would ring the alarm. Even attaching an on-off switch with the alarm did not help, as the butler put it in off position before going to bed and on again during the daybreak, which was no better than the earlier situation. Mother Tongue by Amy Tan This is a narration by a writer, who is not a scholar in English language. However, Amy has detailed the use of English during the family talk that is quite different from the English she may use in her essays and books. She found the difference first at the time of her talking about the book, “The Joy Luck Club” and again while walking down the street with her mother and husband. Amy gives praise-worthy description of her mother’s hold on the English language. The 5 R’s of Creative Non-fiction The story is a narration by a nonfiction writer who works as an immersion journalist. Explaining her work, she informs readers about immersion journalism being the one in which writer is intimate with the lives of people that form the subject of the writings. Creative non-fiction, according to the writer, provides the free platform for the writer to work with flexibility, while including documentary dramas and autobiographies in this category. In addition to 3 R’s as learnt in school, the writer recommends knowing the other two R’s also, for writing nonfiction stories. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold Frank is a filmmaker, who is rumored to have been dating Mia Farrow, looking frustrated at the making of his film. However, the anger was against invasion of his privacy by CBS Television, which made a documentary on his life entitled,” Sinatra -the Man and his Music” that displayed his relation with mafia gang leaders. Sinatra is gifted with fine voice that goes rough when he has a cold. The story develops with Sinatra sitting at a Beverly Hill’s pub, quietly during his flu days where he encounters two blond women. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings This story is about a very old man, dressed like a rag picker with baldhead. His voice suggested that he was a sailor. However, the women of the neighborhood took him to be the angle coming for comforting the sick child of Peleyo and Elisenda. The miraculous recovery of this girl from fever led to the couple thinking him to be an angel. While this angle seems unaware of the crowd that had surged into the courtyard of the couple to have a look at him, the man himself only wanted to remain just comfortable. Essay on “The Sunset Limited” Word count: 780 Introduction Faith prevails The readers get this message after going through the long conversation of this dialogue-structured play, which seems to be monotonous and boring at most of the time. Faith and belief in destiny has led the black person, Samuel Jackson to convince the white professor that whatever is destined does happen and God’s will ultimately prevails. McCarthy has tried to display in the play the confused and drastically divergent viewpoints of two individuals, as both have their own significant intellectual and philosophical reasoning that differ at every stage, while author tried to reach an agreement between the two, which seems to be almost impossible. The black orator in the play is a pseudo Christian by the name of Samuel Jackson, who happens to firmly believe in his well established pre-notions about the life, death, faith and God’s will along with one’s own free will. The holy book Bible inspires such beliefs, although he seems to be giving less priority to this book in his real life. Thesis statement God’s will prevails. Jackson has passed this message clearly to the white professor. Plot The setting of the play, as is seen from the movie adaptation, is the low-rent apartment of Jackson that has chained and pad-locked doors. On the other side of this conversation is Tommy Le Jones, a white professor who has lived life dangerously with self-destructive actions and behaviors, which could force him into the act of suicide, as “sunset” symbolizes the same. The play also tells the reader about an atheist thought process where words like “suffering” and “destiny” are interrelated. (Abidin) While the black Jackson is sitting on a chair, the white professor is seated across him at a kitchen table. The professor’s gloomy and desperate mood had compelled him, earlier to jump in front of a subway train, in an attempt to commit suicide. Jackson was responsible for saving him then. From the conversation, viewers and readers get an idea that professor is least interested in the same, as is evident from his peevish attitude. However, Black Jackson keeps him engaged, while trying to convince the professor that God’s will prevails and destiny has an important role in everyone’s life. The whole play revolves around the conversation of these two men, as professor remains unconvinced by Jackson’s talk about Christianity and god. However, in the end, he seems to agree to Jackson’s viewpoint, as professor feels God has sent him to guard his life. Themes The central theme in this play is the depiction of loneliness. Readers can find this characteristic being common to both characters as is evident in their conversation. The professor’s disappointment with life has led him to believe that death is the only way out of his trauma and loneliness. Black man, who is deeply religious, is also lonely, while he seems to be forgetful about the family and children, which he once had. Religion also remains as a prominent theme of this play. The difference here is the divergent viewpoints these two men have regarding religion. As is evident from the following quote from this play, white man is as much deeply non-religious and non-believer in god, as the black man believes in Christianity and god. “I dont believe in God. Can you understand that? Look around you man. Cant you see?” Another quote from the play, given below, also reveals the deep disappointment of white man with god and religion: “Show me a religion that prepares one for death. For nothingness. Theres a church I might enter. Yours prepares one only for more life. For dreams and illusions and lies. If you could banish the fear of death from mens hearts they wouldnt live a day…” This also reveals the white man’s revolt against life, perhaps due to his persistent loneliness. Language shows difference of educational background The level of education determines the language used by a person in any conversation. The white man is well educated as has pursued his interests in literary art, education and music. However, the black man’s knowledge is limited to religion and Christianity. This is evident from the fact that he can use the word, “theologian” freely, but he is not able to understand the meaning of word, “Facetious”, which the white man uses in reply to the black man’s definition of the professor. Movie adaptation of the play As the performances are very good, the credit for it goes to Tommy Lee who has kept the conversation going on in an engaging manner for almost one and a half hour. However, regular moviegoers may find the film slightly bored due to the totally dialogue based structure of this play. The film may find interest with those who look at the dialogues as an attempt by both men to stick to their guns, while not trying to understand and agree to the opposite viewpoints of each other. There is a message for the viewer in an entertaining manner that “good” or “evil” are absolute terms as God is concerned and even the religious-minded people like Jackson need to understand this fact.(Cochran) Difference between movie and play The film adaptation of this play by HBO has certainly given expression to the words; the dialogue-structured play has surely come to life with the making of movie about this play. The arguments of black Jackson about his faith in religion and counter arguments of Tommy Lee about his faith in nothingness is brought to the viewer in an entertaining and engrossing manner, as Jackson seems to lead the conversation for the first two-thirds of the movie. Viewers are able to get this message quite clearly, against the readers who might find the play boring all along. Deeper analysis However, wondering on the reasons that could have prompted Jackson to save his life, as he was ready to jump in front of the train, Tommy Lee has started to look at this black figure as a kind of angel to guard him. Viewers can interpret the setting of the room as an indication for the white man to have courage of coming to light out of the stark darkness, a chance presented to him by the god. The play also tries to display the fact that Tommy may not be really suffering from depression. Instead, he seems to be knowledgeable enough to look at the futility of his own existence. Tommy does not believe in God, as does Jackson who is a staunch Christian, with a blind faith. Tommy’s interest and knowledge of arts, music and other literary activities have widened his understanding of simple terms like life and death, which now appear to be quite complex for Tommy, after speaking to Jackson. The discussion seems to point towards believing in the existence of God. Although both try to come to certain agreement, they cannot reach any as Tommy is equally adamant to hold his view that a person can make or destroy his fate, without any intervention by God. The unpleasant happenings in the life of Tommy have taken him to such a point of disbelief. However, by the end of the play, his mind has started to believe in deeds of God and destiny.(Cgfren) Works-cited Abidin. H.A. “The Sunset Limited –Full Movie.” Youtube.com.,9 March 2015. Web. 10 March 2015.< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEcDrrgwLgU&feature=youtube_gdata> Cgfren “Strange Bacon.” Roosterillusion.,2 May 2013. Web. 10 March 2015. Cochran, Edgar “The Sunset Limited.” Letterboxed.com.,13 June 2014. Web. 10 March 2015. McCarthy, Cormac “The Sunset Limited.” Dramatists Play Service Inc., Steppenwolf production Oct. 2006 Print Read More