Belmont's Literature Students

Friday, 23 September 2011

Notes On Short Stories

Short Story---- pg99, 100, 70 Eng B

Short Story

Short ; short work of fiction

Narrative which appeals to feelings

Selects small aspects of life or personality and develops it

Usually flat characters

Few characters, few traits for good focus

Limited time, plot, character/s and setting unlike the novel

Attempts to achieve a connection to readers swiftly

Economy of words like poetry but with maximum power

Has unity , economy and singleness of effect

Short story:--

Realistic Impressionist

Realistic--- narrative of action or event

Usually has unexpected twist of events

Characters

Conflict and characterization are very important to development

Conflict is normally physically

Characterizations leads to the revelation of theme

Structure usually follows the structure---

Introduction

Complication

Climax

Resolution

Impressionist:-

Deals with feeling, mood or thought

Psychological, concerned with revealing qualities of people and places

Point of view critical to understanding of the story

Events often loosely plotted more focus on characters growth in self –realization

Insight into characters, mood or human behavior

Analysis of Short Story

Use the 5 W’s

What happens ? (This asks about Plot? Structure)

To Whom does it happen? (This asks about Characterization)

Why does it happen?---(This asks about theme/concerns)….

Ask:__

Plot—is it loosely or tightly plotted?

Conflict?

The initial situation; complication; climax?

Qualities of character/ character changes

Setting and its influence on theme, action; character

Point of view

What does the title contribute to understanding?

Which element is dominant?

About the overall impact of the story?

POINT OF VIEW_/NARRATIVE FORM/VOICE pg. 29 Beka__Who tells the story

Why is point of view important?

Three narrative voices, either 1^st person singular; or third person limited; or omniscent

Involved teller—protagonist

Outside looking in--- limited 1^st person

Third –distance

Omniscient or limited

Know terms—narrator, protagonist, antagonist

Introduction format:_-See BEKA LAMB pg 56; 30

Make a comment about the story/play

Theme of overall work

Writer’s intent, setting , character, conflict

Incorporate comment on the actual question pieces

Eg.the issues, characters and story telling features of OLD STORY TIME (OST) make it appealing to the readers…it inculcates the imageries…

QUESTIONS:-

Write your response in essay format.

2 Watching Ms. Aggy’s story unfold involves being torn between admiration and condemnation.

A) Why do we admire Ms Aggy?

B) Why do we condemn her?

C) What is your final opinion of Ms Aggy? Justify your answer.

D) How is Rhone able to influence this feeling?

Themes In English B:----

Love/family relationships

Women in society

Attitudes to power and authority ( how do those who exercise authority do it?)

Dreams and aspirations

Heroism (courageous deeds), freedom (rights and liberties) and the individual and the environment

Themes in Poetry:-

All of the above in addition to

The supernatural poverty colonialism

Nature injustice discrimination parental expectation

Human cruelty loss of innocence childhood experiences

Deception faith in God death warfare greed

Questions on Prose:-

(Can be used for any story)

1 Briefly outline the plot of the short story given.

2 Classify the type of conflict shown.

3 What was the conflict/

4 How was the character viewed by the other characters in the story?

(refer to i) the children ii) the adults in the story)

5 Is there a difference between “Berry “ and Berry? Explain.

6 What were the main themes in this story?

7 How did the writer develop these theme

8 Account for the difference in the children and the adult’s attitude to Berry?

9 From whose point of view is the story told?

10 Write a character sketch of Berry?

11 How was the main character/protagonist presented

12 Explain the difference between the protagonist and the antagonist

13 What is meant by anticlimax, complications?

A "shabine" is a light-skinned, black person. Basically someone of Negro roots who has light/white skin. However not to be mistaken with an albino.

A connotation is a commonly understood subjective cultural and/or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word or phrase's explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation.

Both connotation and denotation are important for your understanding of literature. One book defines connotation this way:

The cluster of implications that words or phrases may carry with them, as distinguished from their denotative meanings. Connotations may be (1) private and personal, the result of individual experiences (2) group (national, linguistic, racial) or (3) general or universal, held by all or most men [sic]. The scientist and philosopher attempt to hold words to their denotative meaning; the literary artist relies on connotations to carry his [sic] deepest meanings.

So does the advertiser or the propagandist. In fact, we all use connotations all the time.
However, the scientist and the philosopher try to control the use of connotations as much as possible because connotations can vary and be difficult to make explicit or to agree upon. Denotations, on the other hand, can be made exact. When we think denotatively, words can seem to be made to mean no more and no less than what we define them to mean. People turn to dictionaries to discover the agreed upon denotative meaning or they construct their own quite bounded meanings that they agree on. When reason is the strategy, neutral or clearly defined terms are preferred.
But when writers use words that have associations and emotional overtones that are harder to pin down or agree upon, they use them primarily to convey and create auras of contexts and emotional force.
The connotation of a word can be thought of as its aura or aroma, a kind of smell the word has. If you can tell the associational company the word keeps, then, that smell is meant to rub off on the words around it or the subject the word is aimed at. A word might connote guy talk, for example, if it is the word guys sometimes use. It then might connote a male or masculine world.
The denotative meaning of the word, dog, is a four legged, carnivorous, domesticated mammal known to biologists as canis familiaris. However, the connotative meaning would depend on the context of usage and the experiences of the interpreter. No one would call another person’s mother a "dog," unless they wanted a fight, because the connotation is one of insult. Names for animals frequently have connotative associations, and not all negative. Think about teams, for example, that are named for animals—strictly because of the connotations of the animal’s name: Bears, Rams, Jaguars. Think of some impossible team names, again because of the connotations: caterpillars, spiders, gnats, anthrax. Just think: "Bear down Chicago Gnats!"
If you search for connotations and denotations on Google.com, you will find hundreds of pages from the simple to the complex that will define Connotation and Denotation for you. Some involve exercises. If you work with these pages, you will gradually develop strategies for investigating the tone of a literary text through an examination of the connotations of its language. That is our goal--to work with literature. However, literature is not the only discourse that makes extensive use of the connotative capacity of language. Persuasion, propaganda, advertising are obvious users of connotations.

Bedford/St. Martin's tutorial on poetry defines connotation and denotation and provides some exercises for help as well. Go there and work with the connotations in Elizabeth Bishop's The Fish. http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/denotate_def.html
Check out these definitions from Bob's Byway: Connotation and Denotation (While you are on these two pages, check out his definitions of ambiguity and pun.)
And here is the UVic site: connotation and denotation <http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LTConAndDen.html>
The Literacy Education Online page <http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/connotations.html> from St Cloud State suggests three categories for connoative words: favorable, neutral, unfavorable. Look at their table for examples.
Finally, here is the most extensive explanation of all: Daniel Chamber's Semiotics for Beginners page on these two. We will return to his site for explanations of figures of speech as well. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

All the above definitions are pretty consistent with one another. On the surface they seem easy. The test comes in working with language to detect and describe connotation. If we assume denotative meanings are more arbitrated by dictionaries, it would seem we can simply look those up. But what if one is asked to analyze the connotations? How can one get a handle on that?
My solution is this. First we must think in terms of what difference is made when a poet or any writer choses one word out of a pool of synonyms that could be used? What shades of difference happen? But I am aiming for you to get a sense of it with these exercises:
Exercise 1 : Playing with triplets
Go to a little self-test quiz on connotative terms to see if you can pick the term that seems (to me at least) to leave the most favorable impression on a listener regarding the subject of the sentence.
Example:
Sentence: My mother thinks of herself as a ___.
a. home-maker
b. house-wife
c. stay-at-home wife
If the above were your choices for this sentence, you would choose the first term, home-maker, since the overtones of "home" are much more appealing for your mother than "house," and "making" a home sounds much more active and responsible. Notice, I did not make it easy by including really negative synonyms for her such as "ball and chain" or "old lady" or ridiculously positive ones like "domestic engineer."

Themes in OLD STORY TIME

Themes of Old Story Time

One of the themes that is conveyed in Old Story Time is race and class consciousness. This is evident in Ms. Aggy's desire for Len to marry Magaret, a woman she considers of superior standing because of her lighter skin and straight hair. Ms. Aggy believes that by Len marrying Magaret, he will automatically become elevated in society.
In contrast, Ms. Aggy believes if Len should marry Lois, a local woman of very dark skin, that he will be regressing in social status. Thus, she tries very hard to discourage this relationship and when she realises that Len is indeed married to Lois, tries her utmost to criticize and denigrate her daughter-in-law. She even resorts to obeah to try to destroy the relationship.

Another theme that evolves is that of the importance of Education to gain upward mobility both economically and socially. Ms. Aggy works hard in the market and sacrifices modern amenities so that she can afford to educate Len in England. She believes he is doing medicine, the international profession that connotates success and and social importance. When she learns that his doctorate is in Finance, she is disappointed but realises that there is much importance to his job and her pride heightens.

The theme of love and family relationship also plays a part in this play. Ms.Aggy's love for her son is demonstrated in her ambition for him, however sometimes misguided. She wants him to have a home and allows George to encourage her to invest in his "real estate" scheme. She just wants the best for her son or what she perceives to be the best and unfortunately becomes a target for George's scheme. However, her misguided notion of what she believes is best for Len blinds her to accepting his wife as the person he loves. Steeped in the mental slavery of her past and the notion that white is superior and black is derogatory, she sees Lois as a setback to her son. Only when Ms.Aggy learns of Lois's role in protecting and caring for Len when he was young and a victim of George and Magaret's taunts, does she realise her mistake and begins to make amends.
Friendship also is explored in the relationship between Pa Ben ad Ms. Aggy. Even though it was tried and shaken up when Ms. Aggy learns that Pa Ben knew of Lois and Len's marriage before her, it was able to stand the test and after some time of discord, the two resolved their conflict.

Miss Aggy is a Mother to Lenn but her attitude is one of ignorance because even though she is a black woman she tries to grow her son up on the belief that "Anything Black Nuh Good" And when she trys to make him grow up with an education like she never had.

Rhone's most popular play, Old Story Time (1979), in which ‘Pa Ben’, the old story-teller, recounts forty years of Jamaican life, reveals the playwright's comic vision at its most luminous. Rhone's realistic comedies about Jamaican life all combine serious social criticism with buoyant humour, and are acutely sensitive to a wide variety of dialects and modes of speech. If: A Tragedy of the Ruled (1983) and Hopes of the Living Dead (1988) are both historical allegories set in turn-of-the-century Nigeria. He also co-authored and produced the internationally successful film The Harder They Come (1972).

Read more: Trevor Rhone Biography - (1940– ), The Gadget, Old Story Time and Other Plays, Smile Orange, School's Out http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages/5544/Trevor-Rhone.html#ixzz1EycyWHsG

Trevor Rhone bornMarch 24, 1940 in Kingston, Jamaica

diedSeptember 15, 2009

website

http://www.geocities.com/jamaican_theatre/

genre

Theater

about this author

edit data

Trevor Rhone was a Jamaican writer and playwright.

He began his theatre career as a teacher after a three year stint at Rose Bruford College, an English drama school. He was part of the renaissance of Jamaican theater in the early 1970's. Rhone participated in a group called Theatre '77, which established The Barn, a small theater in Kingston, Jamaica to stage local performances. The vision of the group that came together in 1965 was that in 12 years, by 1977, there would be professional theatre in Jamaica.

Among his works is the script to The Harder They Come, a 1972 crime film, which was instrumental in popularizing reggae in the US. He also wrote the script for the 2003 romance One Love.

Trevor Rhone's Old Story Time Today's Jamaica seems overly preoccupied with the issues of class and colour. In Old Story Time Trevor Rhone mirrors a Jamaica struggling with the same subject in the Mid Twentieth century. Discuss these concerns of the play in detail making comparisons/contrasts to the current Jamaican and Caribbean societies.

In Old Story Time Trevor Rhone mirrors a Jamaica struggling with similar subjects in the mid century. Concerns that are brought out in Old Story Time are still evident in the Jamaican society today. The issues of class and colour that are presented within the play are still issues in Jamaica today. In the effort to rise to a European standard of beauty, blacks are still slaves to this mentality. This European standard of beauty (aquiline nose, l...

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OLD STORY TIME
This book tells of a traditional story in a rural community. The tradition of the story telling idea originated from Africa.
This book tells about a mother who was enslaved by her past. She grew up in a society, which she was taught, "any thing that was black wasn't good" and also that black signifies failure and hard ship, while white signifies prosperity and advancement. This belief was passed down as a result of slavery and has followed her through out her life.
The story tells of a single mother by the name of Miss Aggy also called mama, who lived alone with her son Len and beside her lived her best friend Pa Ben. Mama would normally beat her son Len for associating with the black persons in the community; especially girls of his age group. She would tell her son what is it that she wanted for him and what is best for him; also that if he does as she said, and then he wouldn't have a problem.
As the years go by Len had left home to study overseas and his mother was getting really worried about him but after writing her she felt much better. In one of the letters that she received from him he told her that he was married and sent a picture of his wife who was a black woman; and this got mama very agitated. She also thought that Len's wife Lois was turning her son against her. Pa Ben who was secretly keeping in contact with Len told mama that it was nothing of that sort, but mama thought that she had to do something about it.
One day Len came to the house; and they were very surprised and happy to see him, mama hugged, kissed and welcomed her son home. While talking him she would of course passed her remarks about his wife, which he did not like to hear. While he was away mama paid down on a house for him at the bank and George also known, as Mr. Mac was her financial advisor and also one of Len's old enemies.
When Len came back to Jamaica with his wife to stay, mama gave him the papers about the house since he was an economist and had a knowledge of banking. While they were living there, mama would pass their remarks about Lois, whenever she went to visit them.
George, who wanted to talk about the house with Len, went to his house and because of the rumors that Len heard about George he did his own check on him; and found out that George was a very sly and cunning fellow. He was known to be a trickster. He would go around and trick persons and he would use the money that those people would invest in the bank. Due to Len's experience in the banking system George tried to convince him to invest in his bank and Len choose not to.
Mama hated that Lois; so she told George that Lois was the one who told Len not to invest. George was upset and because he head some secrets for Lois he thought he could black mail her and Len. Lois who was a teller at his bank had borrowed some money to help George in acquiring his education, and so George wanted her to sleep with him and also to convince Len to help his business, she refused to and left the room and ran right into Lens arms who had over heard every thing. Len was very upset but that was the least of his problem for his was concentrating on protecting his wife from the obeah that his mother placed on her. Len too went to an obeah woman to protect her but that woman was a fraud and this caused him to panic. He sent Pa Ben for his mother while he talked to George telling him that he cant possibly tell the police about Lois, for then he Len would tell the court about George's actions and he can be charged for conspiracy to defraud. George started to beg Len not to do so and Len told him that he would have to tell mama what he did to him when he was younger and also how he tricked her.
After George told mama that him and his friends ganged Len, when he wrote a love letter to Margaret; and how he lied to her about her money for the house, mama wanted to kill him but he ran away. After Len told mama that he had to go to Lois's house to stay until his wounds healed, she apologized to her and asked her for her forgiveness. Then because the obeah boomeranged they had to pray for mama all night until the spirits came out of her. She hugged them both and called them her children, and they became a family.
By : A.D

Sample of stuents resume

This needs editing. What will you fix?Name: Sherwyn leedonis

Address: Paradise Heights, Morvant

Date of Birth: 21^st October 1993

Telephone: (868) 6236147/ 7270321

Email: sherwynlewis@yahoo.com

Career Objectives:

To work for a organization and fully develop my goals.

Experiences:

July 19^th 2007 – May 26^th 2008

First Citizens Bank Limited

Park Street, Port of Spain, Trinidad

· Payroll Clerk

Education: Belmont Secondary School – September 2008– To present

Belmont Junior Secondary school- September 2005- 2008

University of the West Indies – 2007 to present

C.X.C ‘O’ Levels ( Awaiting CSEC Results)

· English language

· English Literature

· Integrated Science

· History

· Spanish

· Mathematics

Achievements: Certificate in Computer Literacy (2008 – 2009)

Certificate in Food and Nutrition (2006 – 2007)

Most outstanding student (2008)

Interest/ Activities

· Track and Field

· Football

· Meeting new people

· Swimming

· Computer

· Cricket

Volunteer Experiences

· Member of the Saint John’s Church Choir, Cascade

· Contribute clothes to the Salvation Army

References: Available upon request

Poems ----"Voices in the River"and "The Mission"

"Voices in the River"

Birdsongs awake, I

Thrill to chirped crescendo of

Winged blessings sky high

But voices intrude

The long line of river.

Bring d curry n d 3 ringburner by Ayoung

From Cunapo to Aripo,

It flows beyond

The bend end of time

Fus time you comin?

You jokin, right

Fire one for dat

Take d ting

Straight

For all the time you missing

From the rivers of Babylon

Zion’s praisesongs echo

Rhythms to wash,

Wash clothes, wash burdens

Love secrets, all

All de unlovely scents of fear,

Colours of oppression

From the cold blue gaze,

From the terrors of old,

From the oppressive heat,

A watery chariot of peace.

Place of the ancestors,

Of beauty, of struggle, of love

Friendship amidst

Cow dung goat itch

Way all you reach now

Yard fowl and duck does be real hard

It go take some good

Good woodfire

Eshu sits on the bedrock

Right left of Mary Jesus mother God

Ram, Jah Shiva-Ram

Allah, Jehovah, witnesses

Of styrofoam garlands

And rum-incense ethers of drunken libations

Mix with duck-bone fish

Bone cork offerings

Is de sweetest lime in de World.

This part of the river curve

Like stomach full, real nice.

A God moment of creation,

Bamboo green palms over head

Shading de river side and de fire

Real nice, de water springs better

Than Blue Mountain and Zephyrhills.

Here on de flat just right for de cookup

Watch there

It burrows deeper down

As it turn

Is there we does bathe

ole-talk, listen music

And when Santos bring he steelpan

And kwame he cuatro

Dancing and singing for so

Fire in de place

But way Ayoung, he still missing?

Don’t forget fishing

Day or night

Wabine, Cascarub

Taeta swim further up

Parlor hops ready

Or just enjoy

The breeze and de quiet

Look bring allyou …here now and doh spoil de… lime

Women?

Since washin machine mash

Up that river wash gossip

Them fraaaid fresh water now

Dem like salt,

Half de time is jus we men

The Spirit dwellers stop

To watch the antics of this comic lot

Ahji and Beta present

Pillars of salt

Absent in absurd words

Clouded unseeing eyes

Pass Rannie overseeing

Sonny Boy, Sookdeo and

Manko’s entire family

Ahji don’t pass they.

The Maroon mother frowns

Too many wrong perceptions

Of river woman and sea.

Yeah borrow that knife

The dasheen ain’t reach yet.

Take one nah

Only by the river we does meet

How ahji going?

She good, she over dey in de flat.

What all you cooking by all yuh side?

Fish broth.

That good to coat the stomach.

Throw it, the water go carry it

Doh litter de place

With no biodegradable excuse for laziness

Why we didn’t cook a pelau?

What wrong with what we makin?

All you quarrelling over the food to cook and all?

Ah fed up ah this set ah blasted curry

Is curry emancipation, Chinee holiday and Christmas!

All way you turn green pink and glitters

Give de thing a rest nah

Pseudo racist!

But ah stifling!

When I go have some real space

My privileged race?

That’s a white myth

Doors hiding far

Far from this skin stain

Rain more than sun

All de time

The Maroon Nanny sees the tone of need

Rhythms agonized by hurts

Knife sharp slices in an open wound.

Is that ole talk?

Yeah it does go high and low

A good drink go change de flow

Here ain’t for fighting

What is a flag doing there?

Them Baptist and Hindu like

To pray here too, don’t

Meddle with it you never know

What they put it they for

I move.

The first-timer unveiled third eye

Catches the end transformation.

He walks in the spirit.

What’s in the tree above?

Some animal either a bird

Or squirrel

What spirit?

Way all you get he from?

Rum spirit dancing in your eye

It take over your whole head.

Along the long line of the river

Voices float giddily while

A humming bird flutters

Like laughter in still air.

Unprepared a Samsung

Double door no frost

Splash

In the water

An obscene sound

Uttered in innocent prayer

Upsetting the smooth clear surface

And the crayfish’s calm glide.

Habits form by slow degrees

Like fridges in the river

Blocking

Floral petitions to the Gods

Forcing them to wander down

Another path

And I wonder

When the three in the Trinity

Will turn to unity

Will become one

When the essence of the garlic

Flavours every pot pelau fishbroth or duck

Will make a new equation to reach on land

To carry curry duck dasheen and fish broth

In one answer.

I wonder when

Understanding will come

That the river lime

More than pot-last,

More than Warrior game-play

More than river seconds of unity

That river time can be

All time

Like streams into rivers into seas

Change the end

Before the beginning

Into a seamless mesh running through time and land

Way Ayoung, he not coming?

A burst of garlic fragrant

The air with its searing sound

Curry and dasheen reach

Down the long line of the river

The lime start.

FOR MY GRANDMA ("The Mission")

Birdsongs awake, I

Thrill to the chirped crescendo of

Winged blessings in the vast sky,

On the wind, grandma’s mantra echoes:

“Kill them with kindness no matter what”

An unforgettable reminder to my heart to

Forgive all;

An unforgettable memory of my unsung

Hero whose life was too short,

A legacy to honour devotions of ancestors

Long, long enrolled in the bluish high

A reminder that mind, heart and art

Must burn like thanksgiving incense

And incessant litanies, murmured in unknown tongues

To bridge beginning ends in a seamless

Mesh, out of dimension, out of time

Transposing the dreams of one generation

Onto another.

My voice must sound the glories and miseries

Of all seasons and for all seasons

In the wind change of time, like the enduring

Immortelles anchored deep, even in uncertain soil

A healing balm of life, heart and art,

Transcending barriers of race and hate filled relations

From the far reaches of my woman’s soul,

I must for her sculpt, touch and transform lives

(I have a mission to fulfil).

The blacksongbird3 (Lynore V Greaves)

WATCH OUT MY CHILDREN

My sons and my daughters, to you I plead

Watch don’t get no horrors, but please, tahe heed

I know you don’t want noo sermon

But my admonition

Is to guard you against all the evisl of life

Walk cautiously, children, be alert

Because you have an enemy , that’s roaming ;the earth

But you don’t have to be careless

You see sober thinking , leads on to righteousness

To Happiness, spiritual bliss

That’s why I tell you this

(Chorus)

Watch out my children

It have a feller, call Lucifer

With a bag of white powder

And he don’t want to powder your face

But to bring shame, and disgrace

To he human race

Won’t you say it me

(Chorus repeated)

I give you my counsel

Because I want to see

All you young people

Live righteously

What you feed your mind with

Forms your characteristic

And shape the path that you must walk tomorrow

Darkness or glow, joy of sorrow

That’s why I am concerned ………so

Watch out my children

Quidado mis hijos, (To my Spanish children)

Quidado mis hijos, Hay un hombre que se llama

Lucifer, con una bolsa de palvo blanco

Y el no quiere empolvar tu cara

Pero,para, traer pena y disgacia

Para la raza humana

And to my French children:

Attention mes enfants, attention mes enfants

Il y a quelqu’un qui s’appelle Lucifer

Avec un sachet de poudre blanc

Il ne veux par le renverser sur ton visage

Mais apporter haunte et destresse a la race humaine

And to all my chutney children

Dey ko mera bacha logo

Ake insane jaisa shaitan hai

Ooskapas hai tiler powder nahi

Lagata hai, manoshata kanam

Paryaha ake badnoma dabha hai

Watch out my children

Watch out.