Today in class we are reading the great short story "After I Was Thrown In the River and Before I Drowned" by Dave Eggers, one of the most promising contemporary fiction writers my age. He wrote some really cool, really famous books like The What is The What and one of my all-time favorites, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. This story has an interesting narrator, which I'm sure you discovered.
Also today, we covered five new literary terms:
- First-Person Point-of-View (p.o.v.): A character in the story is the narrator. Readers see only what that character sees.
- Third-Person Omniscient p.o.v.: The narrator is "all-knowing" and tells the readers what any character thinks or feels.
- Third-Person Limited p.o.v.: The story is told through the eyes of only ONE character. The reader only knows how that one character feels and thinks.
- Third-Person Objective p.o.v.: The story is told as if by a "fly on the wall" without the reader being able to know the thoughts and feelings of any character.
- Tone: The narrator's attitude toward the story, the characters, themselves, and even the world (i.e. pessimistic apathetic, optimistic, happy, angry, ashamed, prideful, excited, frustrated, dark...etc.).
Two questions to ask yourself: What kind of narrator do we have in this story? What is the tone of that narrator?
Homework: Finish reading the story. Summarize it in as few sentences possible while still including the essential plot and character information AND including three literary terms (you can use the old terms as well as the ones you learned today). Due tomorrow!
Homework: Finish reading the story. Summarize it in as few sentences possible while still including the essential plot and character information AND including three literary terms (you can use the old terms as well as the ones you learned today). Due tomorrow!
