Leo Tolstoy's The Death Of Ivan Ilych
1) Choose one of the stories we have read to discuss “point of view” and how it influences possible interpretations.
In Leo Tolstoy’s short story, “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” the point of view of the story is third person, omniscient. Because the story is third person, omniscient, the narrative isn’t restricted to one character’s point of view. If Tolstoy wanted to, he could’ve told each section through the eyes of someone else. But, the narrator told the story primarily in Ivan’s perspective. Since the story is told through Ivan’s perspective, we only see the other characters from a specific perspective.
In the first section, Tolstoy focused on Ivan’s friends and family and their lack of care over his death. Since the first section is being told through Peter Ivanovich’s point of view, we only see and meet Ivan’s wife, Praskovya, though his perspective. Since it wasn’t told from her perspective, we can only base our opinions on her actions. Instead of grieving over her husband’s death, all she could think about was the money she’s going to get from the government now that she’s a widow. This tells us she never loved Ivan at all. She was only using him for financial support.
But, we have to keep in mind the point of view the narrative is being told in. Since the story was never told from Praskovya’s perspective, we can’t solely judge her …show more content…
on her actions alone. It’s possible that she loved Ivan, but because a majority of the story was told from Ivan’s perspective, we don’t truly know her thoughts on the matter. Everything we know about her was only perceptions made by either Ivan or Peter. This can lead to different interpretations made by the reader. Someone can very well think that she hated Ivan and was just using him, but on the other hand, someone could read her actions completely different and say she’d truly loved Ivan. It’s all about the person and how they interpret it, just like how the point of view can be warped in the favor of the narrator.
2) Discuss gender criticism through an analysis of one of the stories we have read. Does “Reading like a woman” change the way we understand the story?
In Charlotte Gilman Perkins’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” gender criticism is a huge topic.
Right off the bat, our narrator wasn’t given a name. Though, we can safely assume she’s a woman because she’s married to her husband, John. During the time period, this was written, women were considered inferior beings compared to men. Because women didn’t have a voice at this time, our narrator is forced to accept her husband’s instructions and cease all creative means. Since her husband, John is a well-respected doctor, she has to accept the decisions he made regarding her life even though she knew the treatment wasn’t doing
her any good.
While, John wasn’t the protagonist of the story, his decisions, and opinions filled up a vast majority of the story. When our narrator did try to explain her treatments weren’t working, she started crying before she could argue her case. He then ignores his wife’s opinions and thoughts on the matter, until she eventually gives up trying. Because of this, the narrator feels completely powerless. This ultimately leads her to go insane in the end.
In this story, only John’s opinions counted. Since he is portrayed as a stereotypical male figure during this time period, he asserted dominance over his wife. This is where he went wrong. If he didn’t follow society’s norm, the narrator wouldn’t have gone insane in the end.
If the narrative was reversed and we read the story, “like a man”, our understanding of the story shouldn’t be affected. “Reading like a woman”, or “reading like a man”, shouldn’t matter. We shouldn’t be reading the story from a certain gender perspective, nor should we be reading a story based on preconceived notions. Even if we read the story, “like a man,” the conclusion would still be the same—society doesn’t treat women with the same equality as men.
3) We have spent some time talking about narrators, and we have had a broad range of different narrators. Compare two narrators and the effect their characters (or lack thereof) have on a reading of the stories.
In Margaret Atwood, short story, “Happy Endings”, the narrative of the story is being told from two different points of views. Most of the story is being told in the third person omniscient perspective. This allows us to see John’s and Mary’s relationship as they meet, fall in love, and die, as well as the relationship between Fred and Madge in the last few sections. Because the narrative is being told in the third person omniscient point of view, we know how they feel about each other, their thoughts, and how they end up together. But, this story was also told from the second person point of view when the narrator told us, “If you want a happy ending, try A” (22). This kind of narrative was used to begin the story and end the story in section F.
But since the narrative is in third person omniscient and in the second person, the narrator is actually directly speaking to the audience. The narrator is telling us what to expect in the story—even in the third person point of view. The narrator told us everything, telling us what to experience, telling us what happened in their life span, and how each section ends and continues on in section A. This makes the characters sound robotic and bland. Since the narrator is telling us everything, the characters had no emotions; it was very cut and dry. This made relating to the characters hard. But this ultimately caused the audience to focus on the overall plot structure instead.
While, in “The Tell-Tale Heart” the story was written in diegetic first person point of view. Instead of reading the story from someone else’s point of view, we got to see everything from the character’s perspective. He opens up the story claiming he’s nervous, but not mad. He suddenly then reveals he’s going to kill an old man based on the sole reason of the man’s glass eye, and yet he wants us to believe he is sane. The more the narrator tries to prove to us he’s not mad, the crazier he sounds. His actions alone contradicted what he’s saying. His unnecessary pleads, and the way he views himself as a sane person made me distrust the narrator.
Because we got to hear his thoughts and see what he’s doing, we know he’s a mentally, disturbed individual; someone that isn’t reliable. This makes the readers feel a sense of repulsiveness towards the narrator, but at the same time, we’re highly invested into the story. Since we’re only seeing things through the narrator’s perspective, we can’t help but be emotionally involved with the narrator and the action he takes. If the story was told in third person omniscient like “Happy Endings” we wouldn’t have the immediate closeness with the narrator like we would’ve in first.
4) Select a story and discuss which element (setting, narrator, POV, etc.) is the most important to an analysis of the story.
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily” the setting is the most important element to the analysis of the story. The setting, in a nutshell, is the time and place in a story, usually given to us by the narrator. In, “A Rose for Emily” the setting takes place in a small town called Jefferson, right outside the county, Yoknapatawpha. Jefferson is a town that resides in Mississippi. During this time, the south had just gotten out of the Civil War—so it was still deeply rooted in its traditional southern culture. After the Civil War, people from the north headed to the south to make money during the Reconstruction. They were known as carpetbaggers; Homer is one of them.
Faulkner uses setting in the development of the characters in the story. It is used to give insight into Emily’s world. The setting gives us an understanding behind Emily’s actions, motivations, and attitude. Since Emily was a Grierson, she was the townspeople’s only link to their southern pride. Because of this, they kept a close watch on her—stalking her almost. They even connected her cousins when they saw her spending time with Homer. The townspeople felt like it’s her duty as a Grierson to uphold her name—circulating their own ideas on how Emily should act and behave.
This leads us into the main conflict. Since the setting is during the post-Civil War era, being a day laborer wasn’t something the townspeople in Jefferson called acceptable. So, Emily being in a relationship with Homer would’ve been a taboo subject. But, Emily didn’t care. She refuses to change with the rest of the town. The pressure from the townspeople ultimately got to her. She became an introvert and stayed in her house. It is then later revealed that she’d killed Homer. So, to really analyze the story and understand Emily’s life and the series of events that took place, you need to know its setting.
5) The short story genre has some predetermined rules, use one of the stories we have read to discuss either how it violates those rules, but remains a short story or the reverse, how it doesn’t violate the rules, but still fails to be a short story.
In the short story genre, it is predetermined that every aspect of the story must progress towards a successful ending. Each story must consist of a series of events, that contains a beginning, middle, and an end to make a story whole and complete. In other words, a story must have a worthwhile beginning that grabs the reader’s attention, an action-packed middle consisting of a crucial conflict, and then a resolution—the end point.
In James Joyce’s short story, “Araby”, he violates a few rules but his story still remains a short story. While his story did contain a beginning, middle, there wasn’t much action taking place in the story, nor was there an ending that wraps up everything. The story mostly revolved around the main character and his thoughts. There was a lot of anticipation he’d built up around the surrounding events leading up to the bazaar, but nothing much happened other than that. The story then ended with the narrator leaving the bazaar as he’d his final moment of realization.
Even though the ending to the story wasn’t anything spectacular—almost halting in the middle of a story—it was nevertheless still an ending. Not everything was answered, in the end, and there wasn’t much action to it, but we were still able to understand the boy’s reasoning, and see the moment he finally realized the harshness of reality. This resulted in him growing up.
Not every short story needs a flushed out, completed ending to be considered a short story. The story still has all the elements to be considered a short story. It has a strong, relatable protagonist, a setting, a series of events that leads up to the ending, a well-established theme, and most importantly a character that changes as a result of a crisis. And personally, Joyce made the right decision. It left the ending open to a world of possibilities.
In Leo Tolstoy’s short story, “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” the point of view of the story is third person, omniscient. Because the story is third person, omniscient, the narrative isn’t restricted to one character’s point of view. If Tolstoy wanted to, he could’ve told each section through the eyes of someone else. But, the narrator told the story primarily in Ivan’s perspective. Since the story is told through Ivan’s perspective, we only see the other characters from a specific perspective.
In the first section, Tolstoy focused on Ivan’s friends and family and their lack of care over his death. Since the first section is being told through Peter Ivanovich’s point of view, we only see and meet Ivan’s wife, Praskovya, though his perspective. Since it wasn’t told from her perspective, we can only base our opinions on her actions. Instead of grieving over her husband’s death, all she could think about was the money she’s going to get from the government now that she’s a widow. This tells us she never loved Ivan at all. She was only using him for financial support.
But, we have to keep in mind the point of view the narrative is being told in. Since the story was never told from Praskovya’s perspective, we can’t solely judge her …show more content…
on her actions alone. It’s possible that she loved Ivan, but because a majority of the story was told from Ivan’s perspective, we don’t truly know her thoughts on the matter. Everything we know about her was only perceptions made by either Ivan or Peter. This can lead to different interpretations made by the reader. Someone can very well think that she hated Ivan and was just using him, but on the other hand, someone could read her actions completely different and say she’d truly loved Ivan. It’s all about the person and how they interpret it, just like how the point of view can be warped in the favor of the narrator.
2) Discuss gender criticism through an analysis of one of the stories we have read. Does “Reading like a woman” change the way we understand the story?
In Charlotte Gilman Perkins’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” gender criticism is a huge topic.
Right off the bat, our narrator wasn’t given a name. Though, we can safely assume she’s a woman because she’s married to her husband, John. During the time period, this was written, women were considered inferior beings compared to men. Because women didn’t have a voice at this time, our narrator is forced to accept her husband’s instructions and cease all creative means. Since her husband, John is a well-respected doctor, she has to accept the decisions he made regarding her life even though she knew the treatment wasn’t doing
her any good.
While, John wasn’t the protagonist of the story, his decisions, and opinions filled up a vast majority of the story. When our narrator did try to explain her treatments weren’t working, she started crying before she could argue her case. He then ignores his wife’s opinions and thoughts on the matter, until she eventually gives up trying. Because of this, the narrator feels completely powerless. This ultimately leads her to go insane in the end.
In this story, only John’s opinions counted. Since he is portrayed as a stereotypical male figure during this time period, he asserted dominance over his wife. This is where he went wrong. If he didn’t follow society’s norm, the narrator wouldn’t have gone insane in the end.
If the narrative was reversed and we read the story, “like a man”, our understanding of the story shouldn’t be affected. “Reading like a woman”, or “reading like a man”, shouldn’t matter. We shouldn’t be reading the story from a certain gender perspective, nor should we be reading a story based on preconceived notions. Even if we read the story, “like a man,” the conclusion would still be the same—society doesn’t treat women with the same equality as men.
3) We have spent some time talking about narrators, and we have had a broad range of different narrators. Compare two narrators and the effect their characters (or lack thereof) have on a reading of the stories.
In Margaret Atwood, short story, “Happy Endings”, the narrative of the story is being told from two different points of views. Most of the story is being told in the third person omniscient perspective. This allows us to see John’s and Mary’s relationship as they meet, fall in love, and die, as well as the relationship between Fred and Madge in the last few sections. Because the narrative is being told in the third person omniscient point of view, we know how they feel about each other, their thoughts, and how they end up together. But, this story was also told from the second person point of view when the narrator told us, “If you want a happy ending, try A” (22). This kind of narrative was used to begin the story and end the story in section F.
But since the narrative is in third person omniscient and in the second person, the narrator is actually directly speaking to the audience. The narrator is telling us what to expect in the story—even in the third person point of view. The narrator told us everything, telling us what to experience, telling us what happened in their life span, and how each section ends and continues on in section A. This makes the characters sound robotic and bland. Since the narrator is telling us everything, the characters had no emotions; it was very cut and dry. This made relating to the characters hard. But this ultimately caused the audience to focus on the overall plot structure instead.
While, in “The Tell-Tale Heart” the story was written in diegetic first person point of view. Instead of reading the story from someone else’s point of view, we got to see everything from the character’s perspective. He opens up the story claiming he’s nervous, but not mad. He suddenly then reveals he’s going to kill an old man based on the sole reason of the man’s glass eye, and yet he wants us to believe he is sane. The more the narrator tries to prove to us he’s not mad, the crazier he sounds. His actions alone contradicted what he’s saying. His unnecessary pleads, and the way he views himself as a sane person made me distrust the narrator.
Because we got to hear his thoughts and see what he’s doing, we know he’s a mentally, disturbed individual; someone that isn’t reliable. This makes the readers feel a sense of repulsiveness towards the narrator, but at the same time, we’re highly invested into the story. Since we’re only seeing things through the narrator’s perspective, we can’t help but be emotionally involved with the narrator and the action he takes. If the story was told in third person omniscient like “Happy Endings” we wouldn’t have the immediate closeness with the narrator like we would’ve in first.
4) Select a story and discuss which element (setting, narrator, POV, etc.) is the most important to an analysis of the story.
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily” the setting is the most important element to the analysis of the story. The setting, in a nutshell, is the time and place in a story, usually given to us by the narrator. In, “A Rose for Emily” the setting takes place in a small town called Jefferson, right outside the county, Yoknapatawpha. Jefferson is a town that resides in Mississippi. During this time, the south had just gotten out of the Civil War—so it was still deeply rooted in its traditional southern culture. After the Civil War, people from the north headed to the south to make money during the Reconstruction. They were known as carpetbaggers; Homer is one of them.
Faulkner uses setting in the development of the characters in the story. It is used to give insight into Emily’s world. The setting gives us an understanding behind Emily’s actions, motivations, and attitude. Since Emily was a Grierson, she was the townspeople’s only link to their southern pride. Because of this, they kept a close watch on her—stalking her almost. They even connected her cousins when they saw her spending time with Homer. The townspeople felt like it’s her duty as a Grierson to uphold her name—circulating their own ideas on how Emily should act and behave.
This leads us into the main conflict. Since the setting is during the post-Civil War era, being a day laborer wasn’t something the townspeople in Jefferson called acceptable. So, Emily being in a relationship with Homer would’ve been a taboo subject. But, Emily didn’t care. She refuses to change with the rest of the town. The pressure from the townspeople ultimately got to her. She became an introvert and stayed in her house. It is then later revealed that she’d killed Homer. So, to really analyze the story and understand Emily’s life and the series of events that took place, you need to know its setting.
5) The short story genre has some predetermined rules, use one of the stories we have read to discuss either how it violates those rules, but remains a short story or the reverse, how it doesn’t violate the rules, but still fails to be a short story.
In the short story genre, it is predetermined that every aspect of the story must progress towards a successful ending. Each story must consist of a series of events, that contains a beginning, middle, and an end to make a story whole and complete. In other words, a story must have a worthwhile beginning that grabs the reader’s attention, an action-packed middle consisting of a crucial conflict, and then a resolution—the end point.
In James Joyce’s short story, “Araby”, he violates a few rules but his story still remains a short story. While his story did contain a beginning, middle, there wasn’t much action taking place in the story, nor was there an ending that wraps up everything. The story mostly revolved around the main character and his thoughts. There was a lot of anticipation he’d built up around the surrounding events leading up to the bazaar, but nothing much happened other than that. The story then ended with the narrator leaving the bazaar as he’d his final moment of realization.
Even though the ending to the story wasn’t anything spectacular—almost halting in the middle of a story—it was nevertheless still an ending. Not everything was answered, in the end, and there wasn’t much action to it, but we were still able to understand the boy’s reasoning, and see the moment he finally realized the harshness of reality. This resulted in him growing up.
Not every short story needs a flushed out, completed ending to be considered a short story. The story still has all the elements to be considered a short story. It has a strong, relatable protagonist, a setting, a series of events that leads up to the ending, a well-established theme, and most importantly a character that changes as a result of a crisis. And personally, Joyce made the right decision. It left the ending open to a world of possibilities.