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Analysis of the use of Character and Setting in Literature: Craft and Voice

Introduction

The book, “Literature: Craft and Voice” by Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse has been designed to help the students understand how to read and understand literature. The book helps the students to acquired analytical, reading and writing skills by integrating a variety of video interviews and other numerous authors who have been included in the texts. In particular, the book creates a link between the students and the literature works of the authors to help them understand reading and writing skills such as the use of symbols, plot, setting, characters, point of view, theme, language and style. Moreover, the book has been designed to help students learn how to research and analyze information from written materials by inviting effecting reading skills. The essay will examine the use of character and setting using the textual approach. According to Gish Jen, she defines character as the central point of all fiction stories (Delbanco and Cheuse 104). Character represents people’s emotions, their mental abilities and social qualities and, it is developed from the beginning of a story to the end. The paper has identified the use of character in “Who’s Irish” by Gish Jen and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter. The paper will also focus on the use of setting in “The Location of the River” by Barry Lopez” and “Why I Live at the P.O.” by Eudora Welty. The paper will show that the importance and the use of character and setting as devices of literature, rangers from one author to another but most importantly, they are used to define and shape the characters, reflect emotional states and engage the reader in the atmosphere of the story.

The use of character in “Who’s Irish” and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”

Character has been defined as the most important part of a fiction story because it helps the reader to understand the people who have been feature in the story (Stobaugh 112). One of the key elements in understanding a story is to identify the protagonist and the antagonist. As Eder, Jannidis and Schneider (50) explains, if the roles of the characters in a story are not well defined, there are high chances that that it will also be difficult to develop other concepts including themes, plot, styles and any other technical virtuosity (Dobbs, et al., 49).

Jen in his story focuses on the character of grandmother. Jen introduces grandmother as a character and as a narrator. As a character, grandmother is stubborn, practical, close-minded, demanding, traditional and proud. In some instances, she is witty and proud of her fierceness. For example, she backs away not only from gang members when she was working in a restaurant, but she also refuses to yield ground to her granddaughter. In addition, she is insensitive insofar she is less concerned about political correctness. For instance, her daughter keep warning her of saying the words “Irish this, Irish that”. Despite her insensitive character towards other people, she does not compromise her principles towards her family. Jen uses grandmother’s character to show the reader how her methods of child rearing were in contrast to the time and place in which she found herself (Delbanco and Cheuse 105).

In some instances, Jen uses grandmother as a narrator of the story. Grandmother tells the story in sentences which are short, abrupt and also, in broken English. For example, she tells the story of john shooting himself at his foot in humorous and broken English. He further uses abrupt comment when describing food and john being the father. Jen use of grandmother’s narration makes the story to be hard sounding, full of literal detail as opposed to speculation. Grandmother’s character provides an ending of the story and which links with the title. For instance, by accepting to be designated the title “honorary Irish”, she provides a story with an end that demonstrates new comfort level of discovery with others as she finally gains contentment with those that were living with her daughter. Grandmother’s character has also been used to show the cultural conflict between Chinese and Irish people. She comes from a homogenous culture sin China where everyone shares same principles and struggles. For example, she says that “We talk about whether life is bitter or not”. As a result, this makes her to oppose the child rearing method she finds was being used by Irish since she found it to be confusing (Delbanco and Cheuse 105).

In the story, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, Porter introduces Granny’s character to show different forms of relationships. Granny is fond of jilting to the extent that she feels bitter about it. Despite she had a good marriage with John and her love for him continued to grow, she felt that there was something that was missing in her relationship and which, was taken from her by George. Her jilting character reveals the relationship she had with George and john and it show that she unable to love a man so deeply that she is afraid that it may make her bond with him. In paragraph 28, her jilting and blame is illuminated in the line “Yes, she had changed her mind”. Granny has also been used to develop themes such as revenge. Her desire to see George is a form of revenge. She desires George to visit her so that he can know that she is still attract to him and to be aware of what he has missed when he sees how she has prospered and survived. Granny’s name also serves a great significance in understanding her struggles and strenuous life. She struggles when she gives birth to five children, strenuous physical labor and early widowhood (Delbanco and Cheuse 117).

Delbanco and Cheuse have also focused on setting and explained how it has been employed by different authors. Every story has to take place somewhere and many writers recognize the importance of setting in developing characters in a story (Malcolm 22). Settings, on the other hand, is used to describe time and place of the events of a story. Some authors use backdrop or the integral settings. The backdrop setting is where the time and place of the events of the story are unimportant and as such, the story takes place anywhere (Munro 179). Integral setting is used to show how characters, themes and actions are influenced by time and place (Griffith 68).

In the story, “The Location of the River” by Lopez, The Niobrara River is the main setting of the story. The river is not only the focal point of the story, but also a character which is often in antagonism to Foster and narrator. As an antagonist, the river seeks to preserve the culture of the Indians and destroy the whites who intend to reveal its secrets. As a result, the river serves as an integral setting that is used to develop the characters and themes in the story. As a setting of developing theme, the river portrays the two different points of cultures: the whites seek to exploit the rivers nature and mysteries while the Indians as more of accepting its nature and mysteries. The river has also been used to develop characters in the story. Because of the river, we learn that Benjamin Foster was living two words; he was a white man who was devoted to studying the Indian tribes. Burdened with his manuscripts about the Indian tribes, he destroys his life’s work by throwing them into the river. Moreover, Foster becomes obsessed with the river and this drives him insane. For example, one of the Pawnees said that Foster could go to the river naked and hurl a fistful of pages into the water. The narrator also after visiting the river, he leaves disturbed and haunted since he believes that he would also become mad same as what happened to scholar Anton Breverton when he tried to uncover its mysteries (Delbanco and Cheuse 272).

In the story “Why I Live at the P.O.”, the narrator has uses setting to show protagonist and antagonist. In the story, the narrator is obviously the protagonist who constantly battles with her sister Stella-Rondo. The narrator launches the battle with her sister soon after she returns. More accurately, the narrator is the antagonist herself whose bitterness and resentment seeks to disturb peacefulness that is present in her home. For instance, she keeps on bringing the topic of adoption of her daughter and brings about crisis in the story when she implies that her sister was pregnant when she was married (Delbanco and Cheuse 163).

Conclusion

It can be seen that character and setting are important devices of any literature work since they enable the reader to understand the story in a clear way. Delbanco and Cheuse show that setting and character play a key role in developing themes and characters in a story. As such, they show that setting and character when used effectively, attracts the reader attention to the events and incidences that are happening in a story. As a result, character and setting can help students to interpret facts about a story by stressing on narrative voices, emphasis and details.

Works Cited

Delbanco, Nicholas and Alan Cheuse. Literature: Craft and Voice. New York, NY: McGraw-

Hill Education, 2012. Print.

Dobbs, Sarah, Val Jessop, Devon Campbell-Hall, Terry McDonough and Cath Nichols.English

Language, Literature and Creative Writing: A Practical Guide for Students. New York, NY: Anthem Press, 2014. Print.

Eder, Jens, Fotis Jannidis and Ralf Schneider. Characters in Fictional Worlds: Understanding

Imaginary Beings in Literature, Film, and Other Media. New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. Print.

Griffith, Kelley. Writing Essays About Literature. Natorp Boulevard: Cengage Learning, 2010.

Print.

Malcolm, Karen. Phasal Analysis: Analysing Discourse Through Communication Linguistics.

New York, NY: A&C Black, 2010. Print.

Munro, Lucy. Archaic Style in English Literature, 1590–1674. New York, NY: Cambridge

University Press, 2013. Print.

Stobaugh, James P. Skills for Rhetoric (Student): Developing Persuasive Communication. Green

Forest: New Leaf Publishing Group, 2013. Print.

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